HOPE Agora 2024

DATE AND LOCATION

7-9 June 2024

Hotel DoubleTree by Hilton Brussels City

Rue Gineste 3,
1210 Brussels
Belgium

TOPIC

Keeping our health workforce!

ABOUT

The theme for HOPE Agora 2024 was “Keeping our health workforce!”

The HOPE Exchange Programme started in 1981. It now consists of a 4-week training period intended for managers and other professionals (whatever their background is) with managerial responsibilities. They must be working in hospitals and healthcare facilities and be proficient in the language(s) accepted by the host country. The HOPE Exchange Programme is neither a medical nor a technical programme. It is a multi-professional programme.

For the 2024 edition almost 200 applications were submitted out of which 120 candidates from 20 countries were selected. HOPE Exchange Programme participants started on 13 May in various host countries and ended at the HOPE Agora taking place in Brussels from 7 to 9 June 2024. Between 1988 and 1991, each exchange was followed by an evaluation meeting. Since 1992, the programme culminates in a conference now called the HOPE Agora.

An important part of the HOPE Exchange Programme is to facilitate the exchange of knowledge and expertise between healthcare professionals in a European context. This is why the closing conference is considered an integral part of the programme, giving the participants the opportunity to present and to discuss their observations and conclusions.

Each year, HOPE Exchange participants as a group give a presentation of their experiences in the host country on a specific theme identifying up to three good practices. The theme for HOPE Agora 2024 was “Keeping our health workforce!”

Although staffing shortages and resignations in healthcare are not new, both trends were accentuated by the COVID-19 pandemic. The stabilisation and the reversing of the attrition rate of healthcare workers is now one of the highest priorities in the European region, as stated in the Bucharest Declaration on the Health and Care Workforce adopted in 2023 at a WHO European Region meeting on health and care workforce in Europe.

There are many different reasons for why healthcare staff leaves the sector: retirement, working conditions, work-life balance, violence or harassment against healthcare staff, stress and burn-out, a lack of professional development and career progression, salaries, and working hours. For the purposes of the HOPE Agora 2024, the theme was approached through the lens of the retention of the healthcare workforce.

Read the HOPE Agora 2024 proceedings.

Previous HOPE Agora conferences & topics.