Primary Healthcare in 30 European countries
The inaugural General Assembly and launch meeting of a new European research project (Models of Child Health Appraised - MOCHA) was recently held in London to critically examine primary health care services for children in the 30 EU and European Economic Area countries, and to make recommendations as to which models are most effective (see: www.childhealthservicemodels.eu).
Three Icelandic professionals contribute to the work of MOCHA. Dr. Geir Gunnlaugsson, paediatrician at the Faculty of Social and Human Sciences, University of Iceland is participant in Work Package 8 and Country Agent for Iceland. Katrín Fjeldsted GP and the president of the CPME (Standing Committee of European Doctors) and Ragnheiður Ósk Erlendsdóttir RN and Director of School Health Services within the Primary Health Care Organization of Greater Capital Area serve both as members of the External Advisory Board to the project.
Hosted by Imperial College London, funded under the highly competitive Horizon 2020 Programme of the European Commission, and led by Professor Mitch Blair, MOCHA has 19 scientific partners from 11 European countries plus Australia, Switzerland and the USA.
The MOCHA project will run for three years, with the final reports due by the end of 2018. For the first year, the MOCHA project will collect information about each country’s primary health care system for children, using a local agent in each country to collect standard scientifically focused data. The project team will then spend the next year analysing that material and drawing preliminary conclusions. The final stage of the project will be to propose what are the best models, and how countries might adopt them. Throughout there will be a process of dissemination and stakeholder engagement.
30 European Commission and European Economic Area countries
This gap is what the MOCHA project seeks address, studying all 30 European Commission and European Economic Area countries. The 19 scientific partners will work with country agents in all 30 countries to obtain and analyse key information on a range of child primary care topics:
- Models of primary care delivered to children (including urgent care)
- Delivery of care across organisational boundaries (with secondary care, social care, education etc.) including complex care, and services for child protection
- School health services
- Direct access services for adolescents
- Identification of innovative measures of Quality and Outcome
- Identification of derivatives from large data sets to measure quality and outcome
- Economic and Skill Set analyses
- Ensuring Equity for all children
- Use of electronic records in child health care
Children are a very important population group in their own right, and morally and ethically are entitled to good health, as supported by the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child. Children are also the future of Europe, its society and its workforce. Indeed, healthy ageing starts in childhood, as physical health and health behaviours are established then. Thus children’s health is vital to children themselves and for a healthy Europe.
Children are dependent on adults and policy makers for the pattern of primary health care services they can receive. However, there is no consensus on the best way of providing primary health care for children. Different countries favour different models, of which two main ones are generalist general practitioners seeing the child in the family context, and primary care paediatricians with focused expertise. Until now there is no research which shows which model is most effective, which implies that some children in Europe are likely to be receiving sub-optimal care.
The project is advised by an External Advisory Board of international experts, many from international organisations and representing all stakeholder interests.
