“The health professionals I represent – nurses and pediatric nurses – are the backbone of the National Health Service, an intangible asset. Without them, the health system would not exist. But it is clear that in recent years very little has been invested in health personnel in terms of turnover, development and enhancement of specialist skills. Now, after 20 years of slimming care and spending reviews, we need to change pace to respond to complex health needs”. Like this Barbara Mangiacavalli, president of Fnopi (National Federation of Nursing Professions Orders), on the sidelines of the presentation of the latest analyzes and proposals of the Non-Covid patient assistance permanent observatory. Focus on chronicity’, illustrated during a meeting with representatives of national politics and the main stakeholders of the National Health Service, carried out with the unconditional contribution of Ucb, Bristol Myers Squibb, Menarini Group, Sanofi and Beigene.
At the moment, Mangiacavalli points out, “despite the evolution of intensive care and of the entire urgency-emergency network”, in Italy we have a nursing profession that “suffers from an organisational, training and contractual flattening: a situation that does not we can no longer afford. There is a need to work on an evolution of this profession, to train specialist nurses, to recognize its legal and economic role”.
“Without these assumptions – warns President Fnopi – there can be no appropriate response to complex health needs and there really cannot be a health system worthy of the name”.