Archive:Healthcare staff statistics at regional level
- Data from March 2008, most recent data: Further Eurostat information, Main tables and Database.
Health is an important priority for Europeans; they expect to be protected against illness and disease — at home, in the workplace and when travelling. Health is a cross-cutting issue involving a range of topics including consumer protection (food safety), safety in the workplace, and environmental and social policies.
The provision of information about healthcare systems and, ultimately, about the health of a population is a prerequisite for monitoring the effective performance of public health policy.
Main statistical findings
Healthcare staff
Regional data on healthcare staff present a broad picture of the availability of healthcare human resources as part of the healthcare provision for the population. The information on healthcare staff that is available in Eurostat is based largely on administrative data sources. The definitions used may vary from country to country and, to a large degree, they reflect country-specific ways of organising healthcare; as a result, the data collected may not always be totally comparable. Data on healthcare staff in the form of human resources available for providing healthcare services are presented irrespective of the sector of employment (i.e. whether the personnel are independent, employed by a hospital or any other provider). When comparing healthcare services across Member States, Eurostat gives preference to the concept of practising professionals (who provide services directly to patients), as this best describes the availability of healthcare resources. However, it has not always been possible to achieve this objective. In many European Union (EU) countries the scarcity of physicians is a major concern. The number of practising physicians and their distribution is influenced by various factors, including restrictions on entry, choice of speciality, remuneration, working conditions and international migration. Map 1 shows the rate of practising physicians per 100 000 inhabitants. In 2005 in the EU-27, there were on average 310 physicians per 100 000 inhabitants. The highest concentrations, of more than 400 physicians per 100 000 inhabitants, were reported by Belgium (406.2), Greece (501.3), and Italy (639.1), while in Romania and Poland the figure was around 30 % below the EU average, at 213.5 and 216.9 respectively. Consequently, there are also considerable variations to be seen at regional level. Taking all regions together, the density rates range from less than 160 physicians per 100 000 inhabitants in 2005 in Sud-Muntenia (128.7) and Sud-Est (147.7) in Romania, Közép-Dunántúl (152.2) in Hungary or Flevoland (154.8) in the Netherlands, to rates of over 600 in regions of Italy, the Czech Republic, Greece, Spain or Belgium. Not surprisingly, in most countries it is often the capital region where the highest concentration of physicians are to be found; examples include Lazio (with 833.9 in Rome), Praha (672.2 in Prague) or Antiki (649.7 in Athens). However, there are also a number of countries where noncapital regions displayed a higher percentage of physicians. Examples include Prov. Brabant Wallon in Belgium (647.7), Comunidad Foral de Navarra in Spain (620.0), Utrecht in the Netherlands (474.1) and Hamburg in Germany (473.8). In terms of interpreting the map and the figures it must be pointed out that the regional data for Italy and Lithuania relate to licensed and professionally active physicians and not to practising physicians; the data are therefore overestimated.
Data sources and availability
Eurostat collects regional-level statistics on healthcare staff (numbers of doctors, dentists and other health professionals) and on hospital beds as well as data on hospital discharges of in-patients (the latter two are not shown in this publication but are available in Eurostat’s statistical databases). In addition to absolute numbers, density rates are provided for healthcare statistics. Density rates are used to describe the availability of these resources or the frequency of services rendered, expressed per 100 000 inhabitants. They are calculated by dividing the absolute number of healthcare resources available or services rendered in a given period by the respective population in the same period and then multiplying it by 100 000. Data on physicians should refer to those ‘providing services directly to patients’, i.e. physicians who have direct contact with patients as consumers of healthcare services. In the context of comparing healthcare services across Member States, Eurostat considers that this is the concept which best describes the availability of healthcare resources. However, Member States use different concepts when they report the number of healthcare professionals, both for national purposes and for international comparison. Therefore, for some countries, the data might refer to ‘professionally active’ physicians (i.e. practising physicians plus other physicians for whom their medical education is a prerequisite for the execution of the job) or physicians ‘licensed to practice’ (i.e. practising physicians, professionally active and economically active physicians as well as all physicians being registered and entitled to practise as healthcare professionals).
Context
Health is an important priority for Europeans; they expect to be protected against illness and disease — at home, in the workplace and when travelling. Health is a cross-cutting issue involving a range of topics including consumer protection (food safety), safety in the workplace, and environmental and social policies. The establishment of EU-wide comparable data on public health and its determinants is closely linked to one of the priorities of the community action programme in the field of public health 2008–13, namely the priority to generate and disseminate health information and knowledge. It is within this priority area that Eurostat contributes to the achievement of other objectives of the action programme, by collecting and disseminating statistical data and health indicators, which will help policymakers to identify health risks and improve citizens’ health security and to promote health, including by the reduction of health inequalities.
The provision of information about healthcare systems and, ultimately, about the health of a population is a prerequisite for monitoring the effective performance of public health policy. The currently available regional indicators for health provide an insight into similarities and specificities, as well as into the contrasts that exist throughout the European regions. As shown above, there can be large differences between the regions of a particular country, while regions of other countries may be very similar. Thorough analysis of the trends in and variation of health indicators at regional level is therefore essential for the planning and monitoring of actions and programmes, the formulation of new policies and the development of new strategies, which together contribute to ‘evidence-based health policy’. The main focus of Eurostat’s work in the area of health statistics is on the further improvement of the quality, comparability and completeness of the data, as well as on the further extension of regional coverage.
Further Eurostat information
Publications
Main tables
- Health care: resources and patients (non-expenditure data)
Database
- Health care: resources and patients (non-expenditure data)