In 2019, EFA showed leadership in patient representation by engaging effectively with health authorities. We closely followed the discussions on an EU framework on Health Technology Assessment (HTA), as member of the Health Technology Assessment Network Stakeholder Pool. An HTA process that ensures the systematic involvement of patients in the joint assessments remains key in facilitating patient access in new medicines and medical technologies.

EFA engaged in a number of activities of #EU4HEALTH, a campaign calling for more EU policy and action on health. EFA further co-signed a joint statement calling for an ambitious funding of the Health strand of the European Social Fund+, while we endorsed the EU4HEALTH reaction to the European Commission’s reflection paper ‘Towards a Sustainable Europe by 2030’, calling for a comprehensive EU Sustainable Development Strategy that includes health issues. By the end of the year, along with 17 other EU-level organisations EFA co-signed the joint statement ‘Europe, let’s do more for health!’, which outlines seven concrete asks from the incoming European Commission a focus on disease prevention, patient empowerment, and mainstreaming Health Impact Assessments in law-making.

At the international level, as World Health Organization (WHO) official non-state actors (NSA) we participated in the works of the 69^th WHO Regional Committee in Copenhagen, contributing to the discussions about the lessons learnt from the implementation of WHO Health2020 framework in the European region.