New Partnership to Drive up Skills for Long-Term Care

On 20 April, the Social Employers together with the European Association of Service Providers for Persons with Disabilities (EASPD); Social Services Europe (SSE); European Ageing Network (EAN); European Association of Institutes for Vocational Training (EVBB); European Federation of Public Service Unions (EPSU) and many national partners have launched the Partnership for Skills in Long-Term Care (LTC) to drive up training and lifelong learning in the sector(s) involved.

The headline target of the partnership is to contribute to and enable the training of at least 60% of LTC professionals every year by 2030. The ambition is “to assess, prepare and address the LTC workforce skill needs in order to meet the current and future challenges which include; a significant increase in demand for such services, evolving expectations in terms of quality, digital transformation, ongoing and in some cases growing staff shortages, sometimes difficult working conditions and the lack of training opportunities”

The Partnership will welcome new organisations willing and able to contribute to this target in the second half of 2023.

This Skills Partnership will particularly focus on two key skill sets deemed most urgent:

• Digital skills: To equip LTC professionals with the skills to make the most of the digital transition;
• Person-centred and soft skills: To equip LTC professionals with the skills to provide high quality person-centred support to those who draw on LTC services.

By re-skilling and up-skilling the LTC workforce with modern, up-to-date training and education in these two fields, this Skills Partnership will help to ensure the Long-Term Care sector can improve and extend its social impact. In doing so, it will also increase the sector’s attractiveness, tackle staff shortages, while increasing the sector’s economic impact.

Nicolas Schmit, European Commissioner for Jobs and Social Rights, welcomed the initiative as the “first training related action to come out of the EU Care Strategy. (…) One of the points in the Council Recommendation on access to affordable high-quality long-term care, which was agreed last December, invites Member States to address LTC workers skill needs. This means improving both initial and continuous education and training, as well as building career pathways in the LTC sector. This is where the Pact Partnership we are launching today comes in. (…) I salute your objective to facilitate the training of at least 60% of LTC pros every year by 2030. (…) I wish your partnership a lot of success.”