The WHO European Centre of Excellence for Quality in Care and Patient Safety was established in April 2021 in Athens, Greece, with a vision to decisively improve the quality of care and patient safety, inspired by the European Programme of Work (EPW) 2020–2025 – ‘United Action for Better Health in Europe’. The EPW provides an opportunity to reflect on the coherence of policies, structures and resources for quality of health care and implications for policy dialogue, policy formulation and technical assistance at the regional, sub-regional and country levels. Aiming for universal health coverage requires a focus on the importance of quality of care and patient safety across all levels of the healthcare system and beyond, while taking a life-course approach that ensures healthy ageing and quality of services at all stages of life.

This sub-regional office will support the implementation of a shared ambition to achieve the highest level of well-being, health and health protection in line with the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG). Its main aim is to support the efforts of Member States to build safe, qualitative, effective and resilient health systems at the core of post-COVID-19 strategies.

The WHO office in Athens will contribute to the implementation of the EPW by acting as a centre of excellence for quality of care and patient safety in the WHO European Region with a special focus in the countries bordering the north shore of the Mediterranean basin. Specifically, it will act on the following major areas.

• Country support, national strategies and frameworks and sharing lessons to scale up successful interventions.
  Several nations are developing innovations to improve different aspects of quality of care and patient safety. Countries have developed successful interventions, but many require a platform to share knowledge and experiences to allow them to adapt this learning to national and sub-national contexts. Country support is envisioned to include activities such as documenting and collating practices to optimize quality of care and patient safety and providing country-specific assistance for strengthening quality of care and patient safety. It will also provide insights to avoid directing efforts towards unsuccessful interventions.


• Quality of care and patient safety innovation and knowledge synthesis.
  This includes the creation of an innovation hub to share novel quality of care and patient safety approaches. Activities related to this pillar may include applying robust methodological processes for consolidating and reviewing existing literature and for enabling support structures, such as task forces and expert review teams, to weigh in on burning challenges and to address gaps in knowledge.


• Policy analysis in the sphere of quality of care and patient safety.
  This stream of work aims to translate findings into practical know-how, deciphering priority lists of actions, policy options, mechanisms and tools, while including universal principles of leadership and management and the skills and resources needed to ultimately produce change. The systematization of evidence on quality of care and patient safety to inform policies is of immense importance.


• Network building, alliances and stakeholder engagement.
  This pillar will focus the attention of countries on quality of care and patient safety measured by population and clinical outcome, together with the implications for evidence-based guidance, clinical measurement and clinical governance. Under this pillar partnerships with relevant stakeholders will be developed and scaled up. The sub-regional office will work to identify synergies with global health initiatives, foster partnerships with leading academic institutions and think tanks, and collaborate with partners and other actors working with and across Member States with a strong focus on southern European countries.