Health and Social Services
Health and Social Services (HSS) is a large and diverse sector that encompasses a wide range of services including hospitals, child care, community health services, social work and care homes for older and disabled people. EPSU represents health and social services workers across Europe, including nurses, health care assistants, midwives, doctors, elderly and child care workers, social workers, laboratory staff, hospital cleaners and medical secretaries. We organise in public, non-for-profit and private services.
EPSU is the recognised European social partner organisation for workers in the hospital and health care sector throughout the European Union.
Adam Rogalewski is the EPSU Policy Officer for the sector. The President of the EPSU Standing Committee for Health and Social Services is Kirsi Sillanpää, Tehy, Finland, and the Vice-Presidents are Yolanda Gil of CC.OO (Spain), Dietmar Erdmeier of Ver.di (Germany) and Razvan Gae of Sanitas (Romania). You can get their contact details here.
Find out who is your national EPSU representative for health and services below.
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New project to examine relationship between Covid-19, mental health of care workers and trade union responses
Healthcare and nurses trade unions across Europe, represented by the European Public Service Union (EPSU), are very concerned about the short and long-term mental health effects of Covid-19.
Federations agree next steps on trade union rights
Meeting in Skopje in North Macedonia on 22 September, public service trade unions from across Europe agreed to continue to work together to defend and strengthen trade union rights for employees, civil servants and all uniformed staff, from firefighters and health workers to police and military personnel.
Finland: EPSU backs health unions’ right to strike
EPSU has sent a message of solidarity to nurses' unions in Finland in the face of the government’s threat to ban strikes in health and social care. The federation has also written to the Finnish prime minister urging her to withdraw this unacceptable threat to the right to strike.
New European Care Strategy
The population of the European Union is ageing: the number of people aged 80 and over is expected to increase by 88 per cent over the next 30 years. Principle 18 of the European Pillar of Social Rights, the right to long-term care (LTC), will be ever more important.