the development of general and species-specific best practices or codes of conduct on bio-security or on animal health and animal welfare needs in aquaculture;

The 2009 Council conclusions on safe and efficient healthcare through eHealth called for an alignment of eHealth with health strategies and needs at the Union and national levels through the direct involvement of national health authorities.

Specific activities shall include: understanding the determinants of health (including nutrition, physical activity and gender, and environmental, socio-economic, occupational and climate-related factors); improving health promotion and disease prevention; understanding disease and improving diagnosis and prognosis; developing effective prevention and screening programmes and improving the assessment of disease susceptibility; improving the surveillance of infectious diseases and preparedness for combating epidemics and emerging diseases; developing new and better preventive and therapeutic vaccines and drugs; using in-silico medicine for improving disease management and prediction; developing regenerative medicine and adapted treatm ...[+++]ents, and treating disease, including palliative medicine; transferring knowledge to clinical practice and scalable innovation actions; improving health information and better collection and use of health cohort and administrative data; standardised data analysis and techniques; active ageing, and independent and assisted living; individual awareness and empowerment for self-management of health; promotion of integrated care, including psychosocial aspects; improving scientific tools and methods to support policy making and regulatory needs; optimising the efficiency and effectiveness of healthcare provision; and reducing health disparities and inequalities by evidence-based decision making and dissemination of best practice and by innovative technologies and approaches.

It will (a) establish a mechanism for networking and exchanging good practice between the Member States, accession countries and relevant international organisations on improving the access and appropriateness of health care services, health promotion and prevention to meet the needs of migrants, the Roma and other vulnerable ethnic minority groups, including irregular/illegal migrants; (b) document the legal and policy framework, including review of national health plans and support for the development and monitoring of national action plans for migrants/ethnic minorities to include a specific focus on the Roma; (c) develop benchmarking criteria and consensus guidelines on good practice on access to care for the Roma and other vulnerable ...[+++] ethnic minority and migrant groups; and (d) review training and capacity building programmes in relation to ethnic/migrant health and development of a consensus framework for capacity building for professionals, including basic components of a training programme and the operational aspects of its delivery and evaluation.

Welcomes the key suggestions made by the Commission in its Communication entitled ‘Solidarity in health: reducing health inequalities in the EU’: (1) making a more equitable distribution of health part of our overall goals for social and economic development; (2) improving the data and knowledge bases (including measuring, monitoring, evaluation, and reporting); (3) building commitment across society for reducing health inequalities; (4) meeting the needs of vulnerable groups; and (5) developing the contribution of EU policies to the reduction of health inequalities;

The EU must also play an active role in creating an environment conducive to innovation in public and pharmaceutical sectors which address public health needs, in particular to maximise the success of clinical research.