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The Hameenlinna Workshop

Representatives of our partner regions met at a workshop in Hameenlinna (Finland) in October 2006. The workshop concerned the key issues and trends relating to employment (including inclusive employment) in health care organisations and systems. The aim was to enable participating regions to develop a wider understanding of this topic. Central areas of the discussions were also:

Inclusive employment: ‘An approach by organisations to encourage growth within and increase job opportunities for local communities. This approach facilitates reductions in intraregional disparities between communities in terms of the access to of employment for the unemployed, migrant/immigrant, ageing workers, those with mental health or learning disabilities. Inclusive employment provides these groups with opportunities to gain employment on an equal basis and contribute their creativity, knowledge, skills and experience. Ultimately the benefits should include working towards humane services, work-life balance and quality of life.

Social enterprises: The term ‘social enterprise’ has many interpretations throughout the EU member states. The UK for example follows a more corporate model of social enterprise, whilst many other EU regions look at social enterprise primarily as a means to deliver welfare services and some countries extend the definition of social enterprise to include businesses that have demonstrable socially responsible policies bringing tangible benefits to local communities.

The workshop also tried to cross-reference and interlink with the three other HCN themes: Local procurement, Capital investment, Technology development and application. The above areas will form part of the process of developing new principles of employment. In particular, we looked at how health sector can and is using employment as one approach to contribute to (i) the health and cohesion of local communities (ii) employment opportunities for vulnerable population groups (iii) effective contribution by the health sector to working with regional and local partners in creating skills escalators and training opportunities.