The BeWell project, an Erasmus+ project which focused on the upskilling and reskilling of Europe’s health workforce, held its final conference on 7 May 2026. On the previous day, 6 May 2026, it organised a BeWell Partnership meeting. Marc Lange, EHTEL General Secretary, and Diane Whitehouse, EHTEL Principal eHealth Policy Analyst, attended these two events for you.

What did the BeWell Skills Partnership meeting offer?

The BeWell Skills Partnership meeting gathered together more than 60 attendees. It first focused on the BeWell skills strategy, one of the project’s four key pillars. It then explored the ongoing possibilities for the future uptake and sustainability of BeWell’s three other pillars on skills monitor and intelligence, training modules and competence matrices, and its Large-Scale Partnership for the Health Ecosystem.

The Large-Scale Partnership concentrates on health workforce upskilling and reskilling and forms part of the wider, European, Pact for Skills Partnership. The meeting showcased complementary initiatives, such as Italy’s ProMIS training platform, and featured updates and outcomes from the EUVECA and BRIGHTskills projects.

Throughout 2022-2026, BeWell continuously supported the European Union’s Pact for Skills, which has succeeded in training some 10 million workers. Close to 4 million Pact for Skills training sessions occurred in 2025 alone!

What did the BeWell final conference offer?

The BeWell final conference offered more than 100 attendees a helicopter overview of BeWell’s achievements over its four years of activities.

It began with keynote insights from European Commission personnel from DG SANTE and DG EMPL, Petronille Bogaert and Sonia De Melo Xavier. It showed how the European healthcare workforce is at a turning-point. It identified how people can build on skills intelligence, shape the future of health workforce skills, and learn from initiatives/projects in action and from the testimonials of trainees.

It also explored the ongoing strengthening and collaboration that can occur when building workforce strategy initiatives with other projects or groups such as XiA, AMR-EDUcare, BRIGHTskills, H-Pass, and Joint Action HEROES. For more on Xia, also see here.

The conference deep-dived especially into the BeWell skills strategy. The skills strategy was introduced at the very start of the conference by EHMA Executive Director, Federica Margheri. Five stakeholder groups – BioMedical Alliance, CPME, EPSU, ESNO, and PGEU – explored in an early panel just how the strategy responds to the needs of health workforce personnel.

The final (May 2026) version of the strategy sets out a practical framework to support actors in moving from skills needs to implementation, whether they are policymakers, healthcare organisations, education and training providers, or professionals and civil society.

The strategy explores, in five parts, competence architectures, enablers for realistic implementation, priorities and realities, implementation pathways, and implementation “benchmarks” (indicators). It lays out a direction of travel for people committed to taking forward the enhancement of health (and care) workforce skills and provides a potential launchpad for future actions.

The strategy builds on several sources of evidence and data: an initial strategy published in summer 2024, the expertise of BeWell consortium members, skills intelligence gathered throughout the project, stakeholder feedback, and the piloting of new training approaches.

Later panellists, representing BeWell Partnership members such as EHTEL, DEFACTUM, EUREGHA, EuroHealthNet, and ProMIS, reflected on next steps for implementation of the BeWell skills strategy.

Source: EHTEL

The five association panellists reflected on many questions, including:

• What European Union-level, national, regional, and local enablers are needed for skills strategy implementation.
• Who should take the lead.
• What is missing.
• What’s the one action needed over the next 12 months.

Among several potential answers and solutions mentioned, training for AI and AI training cropped up.

What has BeWell achieved overall?

Over its four years of activity, BeWell has focused on the skills needed by the European health and care workforce in three main areas: digital, green, and the future (“next generation”).

By May 2026, BeWell had succeeded – among many other materials and resources – in producing:

• A detailed skills strategy.
• 12 digital skills courses, available in 9 languages including English and which provides certificates to trainees.
• 9 next generation skills courses, including on digital care, digital patient education, and AI for general practitioners.
• A skills monitor that covers 180 digital skills courses available for health and care professionals around Europe.
• A EuroHealth issue dedicated to the current and future work of BeWell.
• Two policy briefs, one on digital skills and another on green skills.

What’s in it for you?

BeWell’s outcomes and resources can be especially helpful if:

• You’re working on implementing digital skills for stakeholders in the health and care fields, whether through massive online open courses (MOOCs) or courses or programmes.
• You’re in a project working on similar endeavours or initiatives to BeWell.
• You’re a member of the BeWell Pact for Skills/Large Scale Partnership for the health ecosystem or similar Partnerships.
• You’re hoping to expand understanding and knowledge of digital skills.

For more information

• Visit the BeWell website.
• Access BeWell’s series of newsletters, including its last.
• Follow BeWell on LinkedIn.
• See what else EHTEL is working on in terms of capacity-building including change management.
• See what EHTEL member, TIC Salut Social, is doing to strengthen workforce digital skills.