UEMO Spring General Assembly 2023

The UEMO held its Spring General Assembly at the Maison des Associations Internacionales in Brussels, on June 2 and 3. Delegates from 19 European countries as well as from three European Medical Organizations (European Medical Students Association, European Junior Doctors and Standing Committee of European Doctors) attended the meeting.

Following a video message from Roberta Metsola, President of the European Parliament, praising the work of general practitioners/family physicians in Europe, our keynote speaker Maya Matthews, Acting Director and Head of Unit, DG-Santé, provided an overview of the health workforce projects DG-Santé is engaged in. Some of these projects like the BeWell project, are of interest to UEMO and we will follow up to discuss how UEMO can get involved. Raquel Gomez Bravo, a family physician and researcher at the University of Luxembourg, gave an inspiring talk on how to influence European health policies, and many ideas came out of that talk that UEMO may be able to implement.

There were two important presentations on the state of general practice in Austria and the United Kingdom. These presentations provided the rationale for UEMO to come up with concrete policy proposals to support these countries.

The plenary approved a policy paper on climate change and health. This policy paper aims to outline the reasons why the European Union of General Practitioners/Family Physicians (UEMO) should lend its support to the new Climate Law recently introduced by the European Union. As an organization representing the interests of general practitioners and family physicians across Europe, UEMO has a crucial role to play in advocating for policies that promote public health and address the urgent challenges posed by climate change.

We also discussed continuous medical education / continuous professional development (CME / CPD), prevention, e-health and the current situation of the recognition of general / practice/family medicine in Europe.

Finally, we approved the general principles for changes to our current statutes, which are important to improve the efficiency and functioning of the UEMO.