Our Project contributed to the new document “Strategic Directions for the Development of Nursing in Ukraine”

The Ukrainian-Swiss project “Medical Education Development” participated in creating the document “Strategic Directions for the Development of Nursing in Ukraine” in cooperation with the Ministry of Health of Ukraine and international partners.

Our team, namely project office manager Tetiana Chernysh, PHC strengthening coordinator Daryna Bogdan, policy formation consultant and internship program coordinator Mladena Kachurets, worked on the section related to the medical education of nurses. The entire document consists of four sections: education, human resources and work environment, leadership development in nursing, and strengthening the role of nurses in service delivery.

The draft document underwent several rounds of discussion. In early August, under the leadership of Minister of Health Viktor Liashko, the document was presented at the Ministry of Health of Ukraine. This was the first step towards institutionalizing the nursing development Strategy. By the end of August, thanks to the active involvement of our project, discussions were held with four groups of professional communities: nurses, representatives of primary healthcare facilities, medical educators, and representatives of specialized medical care institutions.

On September 16, the Minister of Health met with representatives of the professional community to clarify proposals for improving the document. Our project representatives acted as co-organizers and co-speakers at this meeting.

The next step is to consolidate comments and suggestions, which will be reflected in the final version of the strategic directions for the development of nursing. Afterward, the framework document will be submitted for consideration and approval by the Ministry of Health’s board.

Since our team worked on the education section, it was important for us to hear the participants’ opinions regarding this part. We are pleased that all four stakeholder groups involved in the discussion share a common understanding of the goal of this strategic direction—ensuring the training of a sufficient number of nurses who meet the modern healthcare system requirements and possess the necessary competencies. We thank all participants for their comments, clarifications, and contributions.

It is worth highlighting that our team has been working on nursing in primary healthcare for more than three years. In particular, we designed and are implementing the project “Advanced Nurse Practitioner”, aimed at transforming the role of nurses within the healthcare system. This initiative enables nurses to independently consult patients at the primary care level, significantly improving the accessibility and quality of medical services. Currently, we are collaborating with 15 primary healthcare centers. We are extremely grateful to our partners for their joint efforts, which have enriched our experience and allowed us to approach Strategy development more comprehensively. You can learn more about the “Advanced Nurse Practitioner” project in our report.

Meanwhile, our team is finalizing the document and getting ready to contribute to the Strategy’s implementation.

We want to thank our partners who contributed to the creation of this document: USAID Project “Health Reform Support”, WHO Ukraine office, and the State Agency “Center for Nursing Development of the Ministry of Health of Ukraine”.