EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
PRESENTATIONS
The first FEPI conference, European Nursing Regulation: A Platform for Health, held in Madrid on 28-30 April, provided the opportunity for FEPI to introduce its mission and objectives, action plan and activities as well as its achievements during its first year of existence.
The FEPI conference brought together regulatory bodies from 18 European countries, experts in nursing regulation, members of European organisations for Nursing and Health and representatives from the European Commission, PCN, ICN and the European Council of the Liberal Professions.
The FEPI founding members (Italy, Spain, Ireland and the UK) stressed throughout their presentations the importance of nursing regulation in guaranteeing public and consumer protection. They also noted the EU influence on regulation through EU legislation (by the means of EU Directives) and made it clear that FEPI were to play a fundamental role in providing a European platform for exchange on nursing regulation issues, collaboration on fitness to practice issues and co-operation on the harmonization of standards and improvement of quality of nursing education.
The conference offered a space for debate on commonalities and differences regarding nursing regulation in Europe, nursing standards and competencies as well as ethical and deontological codes for nursing. Three case studies of nursing regulation (Spain, Croatia and the UK) were presented in order to exchange good practice and challenges but also in view of demonstrating the importance of having a European organisation of regulators, such as FEPI, that will be able to disseminate good practice across Europe while responding to the challenges.
The presentation from a European Commission representative highlighted the current opportunities and challenges that EU Directives provide for the Health Professions. While presentations from FEPI members outlined FEPI’s response and recommendations to the Directive of Mutual Recognition and the Directive of Services and stressed the current challenges that Directives present for nursing regulation in particular.
The conference concluded with the presentation of a draft statement on nursing regulation, supported by the FEPI Founding Members to be formally accepted in the forthcoming FEPI assembly in Florence end of June.
In the draft statement on nursing regulation, FEPI urges national regulatory bodies to join FEPI in its work on the autonomy in professional self-regulation, the improvement of standards for quality of nursing education, and the facilitation of the mobility of nurses across Europe. The statement positions regulation as fundamental to the identity, structure and type of services nurses can offer while it stresses that nursing regulation is an integral part of the continuous improvement of nursing practice, education and services.
As it results from participants’ feedback and the echoes from the press, FEPI’s first conference succeeded in setting a good framework for further debate on nursing regulation at European level, while it created a truly enthusiastic atmosphere of confidence in the work of FEPI.
FEPI secretariat would like to thank the Spanish Council of Nursing for the warm welcome and wonderful setting they provided to the conference and would like to announce that the next FEPI conference will take place in Sicily on 11-13 May 2006
FEPI Presentation
FEPI Action Plan 2005-2006
FEPI Directive Mutual Recognition
FEPI Directive Services
Spanish case study
Croatian case study
UK case study
Tuning
