European Core Competences Framework for Health and Social Care Professionals Working with Older People.

The number of older people in Europe is increasing and the demand for care and support is changing. Allover Europe there is a need to educate students and professionals in health and social care with the rightcompetences to work with older people. Therefore this European Core Competence Framework forhealth and social care professionals working with older people is developed in the context ofinternational cooperation between 26 universities and universities of applied sciences as part of theEuropean Later Life Active Network (ELLAN). The ELLAN is a Lifelong Learning Programme project fundedby the European Commission for the period September 2013 – September 2016. The consortiumincluded 26 partners from 25 countries in Europe.The ELLAN project promotes European cooperation and exchange of innovation and good practicerelated to the ageing population and to the educational preparation of those professionals in health andsocial care that work with older people. The desired outcome of the ELLAN project is a better quality ofhigher education related to the care and services of people in later life. The main result is this EuropeanCore Competences Framework for health and social care professionals working with older people. Theproject directly targets educators and management staff at the partner organizations and other highereducation institutions in Europe. The indirect target groups are the students, professional communitiesand older people themselves.The consortium conducted analyses of competences required by professionals working with older peoplefrom the viewpoint of literature, from qualitative research among older people themselves in sixdifferent countries and from quantitative research among professionals. These research studies wereused to develop this European Core Competences Framework. The competences are described accordingto the CanMEDS roles1. The competence framework is verified by two rounds of Delphi research among agroup of 21 experts and a group of 21 researchers from different countries all over Europe.In addition, within the ELLAN project research was also conducted on the attitude of students to ageingand working with older people and also on innovative educational approaches to gerontology thatinfluence the attitude of students. More information about the ELLAN project and the different researchreports can be found on http://ellan.savonia.fi/.In this document the terms and concepts used are first defined, then the CanMEDS roles are describedfor health and social care professionals working with older people. For each role, competences aredefined. The 18 competences are elaborated in performance indicators