The agreement aims to stimulate much needed changes to bachelor’s degrees in healthcare, adapting them to emerging challenges and new care models that will soon come into being. Some of the changes will be led by the Inter-University Council of Catalonia (CIC), the organisation that acts as a bridge between the Government of Catalonia and Catalan universities. 

 

The cooperation agreement has arisen in response to healthcare sector demands that were drawn up within the Professional Dialogue Forum. This forum is run by the Ministry of Health and provides a space for debating transformative actions with a view to reaching effective conclusions regarding planning and organisation policies for healthcare professionals. In 2019, this discursive space gave rise to a joint project between the Ministry of Health, the Ministry of Business and Knowledge —via the Secretariat for Universities and Research— and Catalan universities.

 

The Minister for Business and Knowledge, Àngels Chacón, has stressed that “new health professionals must be suitably equipped with the values, aptitudes and knowledge necessary for facing new and emerging challenges”.

 

Likewise, Minister for Health, Alba Vergés, has underlined how important it is to “value humanistic training based on values, something that citizens look for in Catalonia’s health system and which characterises vocational professions such as those in the field of healthcare. And it needs to start with education”.

 

The cooperation agreement has been drawn up with the intention of consolidating and perfecting the educational content of official university healthcare curriculums, thus enhancing the development and quality of the healthcare professions they aim to serve.

 

The agreement sets out four main priority objectives regarding university education: a revision of the skill-based content on university programmes aimed at professional profiles in the field of healthcare; providing healthcare students with an education based on values and attitudes; an adaptation of the teaching infrastructure and the profile of university teaching staff to improve undergraduate education, and an improvement of the accessibility to university programmes on healthcare, thus promoting equity of access and the development of skill-based content, values and attitudes sought in all budding healthcare professionals.

 

In order to set about achieving these objectives, as well as analyse and propose improvement actions regarding the challenges that have been outlined, two new working groups were formed last year as part of the Inter-University Council of Catalonia (CIC). First of all, a working group was created in April to focus on improving content on bachelor's degrees in medicine. Later that year in June, a second group was created with the aim of improving content on bachelor's degrees in nursing.

 

With the agreement now signed, the Ministry of Health and the Ministry of Business and Knowledge’s Secretariat for Universities and Research will work together to form new specific and joint working groups that will concern universities offering bachelor’s degree programmes in healthcare. 

 

The working groups are expected to present their conclusions and proposals for improvement to the CIC within a maximum of two years following their formation, so that they can be evaluated and approved.