Older People: Improving Health and Social Care

This contributed volume is based on the "European Core Competences Framework for health and social care professionals working with older people" (ECCF), developed and verified in a unique international cooperation between 26 universities and universities of applied sciences in 25 European countries, part of the European Later Life Active Network (ELLAN). In addition to the framework, the book outlines the necessary qualifications and describes the roles of professionals working with older people in health and social services. It explores healthy ageing for older people from different perspectives and describes the seven roles of health and social care professionals (Expert, Communicator, Collaborator, Organizer, Health and Welfare Advocate, Scholar, and Professional), before going on to define 18 related competences and elaborating them in performance indicators.

Beyond the ECCF, the book explains the widely used CanMED role model and puts forward theories to  support a client centered and integrated approach on health and social care in order to change attitudes toward older clients and offer better care and support. It also provides health and social care professionals, for example nurses, allied health professionals and social workers with new contextual information and cultural awareness. It gives a voice to students by addressing selected perspectives for professional development. The book includes questions for reflective learning helping to make the book a vital practical instrument for use in the educational context throughout Europe.

Europe’s ageing populations represent a major challenge for both public health and social care systems. 18% of the population is 65 years old and over, and this proportion will increase in the coming years. As a result, more and more health and social care professionals will work with older people in different settings – at home, in the community, in hospitals or in long-term care settings.

Older people, and especially the frail, face a host of interrelated issues, e.g. cognitive restrictions, functional restrictions, psychosocial problems, multimorbidity, polypharmacy and social isolation. These problems call for an integrated approach to health and social care, which this book supplies. It is intended for health and social care professionals, students and educators, for a better understanding of Europe’s ageing society and of the impact on care and services. Furthermore, the ECCF offers educational institutes a unique resource for curriculum development, education, training and assessment.

• Ageing
• Competencies
• Higher education
• Health and social care professionals
• Multidisciplinary teams
• Professional roles
• Elderly care

• Centre of Expertise Healthy Ageing, Hanze University of Applied Sciences, Groningen, The Netherlands

  Bea L. Dijkman

• School of Health Care, Savonia University of Applied Sciences, Kuopio, Finland

  Irma Mikkonen

• School of Nursing, Hanze University of Applied Sciences, Groningen, The Netherlands

  Petrie F. Roodbol

Bea Dijkman, MSc, works in the Hanze University of Applied Sciences as an educational expert with a long experience in curriculum development, teaching and learning methods. She is specialized in the field of health and social care and works since 2012 for the Centre of Expertise Healthy Ageing. One of her main interests focuses on changes in health and social care and the consequences for the education of health and social care professionals. She was the project leader and main author of the development of the European core competence framework, part of the Ellan project (European Later Life Active Network).

Irma Mikkonen, PhD, MNSc, RN (registered nurse) has a long intercultural project work experience, especially in projects aiming to develop health care organizations as learning environments and supporting mentors’ supervision skills and professional development; participating in benchmarking, quality assurance and audit. She acted as the manager inthe project of the EU Lifelong Learning Programme; Erasmus Curriculum Development: DIPRA – Counselling for practice – a pilot of improving counselling quality of diabetics 2008-2010 as well as a project manager in the ELLAN –project (European Later Life Active Network 539547-LLP-1-2013-1-FI-ERASMUS-ENW); a wide networking project of 26 European partners developing education related to ageing issues (2013-2016). Dr. Mikkonen is experienced in developing courses in health promotion and evidence based health care. She has teaching experience in patient education, health promotion, evidence-based nursing and research & development. She has been in charge of developing nursing curriculum at Savonia UAS and has intercultural curriculum development experience. Dr. Mikkonen has skills in research for developing learning environments, for example, blended learning. 

Petrie F. Roodbol, RN, PhD, is a senior advisor in nursing and a Professor of Nursing Science at the HanzeUniversity of Applied Sciences in Groningen and a senior advisor at the University Medical Centre Groningen. She is part of several national committees on behalf of the Minister of Health. She is the former Director and the Dean of the Wenckebach Institute (University Medical Centre Groningen) with special interest on (multiprofessional) education, innovation and positioning of nurses related to healthy ageing.
She is one of the founding mothers of the Nurse Practitioners program in her country and is past chair of the APN network of the International Council of Nursing.
She is a past member of the board of the Dutch Nurses’ association V&VN and several other national and international committees. She received several awards: a national award for the implementation of the Nurse Practitioner and an educational award for the innovation of the educational programs for nurses in the North of the Netherlands.

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