COOPERATE aims at achieving the improvement of the health-care system from a VET point of view and within a European framework. This objective is framed as follows: a) to gather learning outcomes that, in each country, define the health-care sector, as described by the NQFs. Thus, facilitating partners’ understanding of how the sector is regulated in other countries represents a key step to provide a common, European and quality training response to the pandemic; b) to leverage on the best VET programs of the represented countries c) to assess the professional gaps found in the target facilities, in order to identify potential points for improvement. Analysing the main challenges of healthcare operators and facilities is extremely strategic. Partners aim at promoting a more accessible use of the training offer, in line with the contemporary trends of an online realization of events. Partners intend to favour an experimentation of digital fruition of their training offer. Secondly, partners intend to sensitize VET providers, health-care organizations and operators and policy-makers on the project and its results. Finally, partners aspire to increase the European dimension and the network with actors committed to improvement.
The context of COOPERATE is represented by the COVID-19 pandemic which has demonstrated the EU national healthcare systems’ inability to counter it. All in the project involved EU countries have been unprepared to manage the crisis, adopting restrictive measures on freedom, which have halted the economy while failing to contain the virus. At this point, the COVID-19 pandemic is officially declared as over. Nevertheless, due to the experimental nature and the scarcity of vaccines, viruses constantly mutating and new viruses being discovered, pandemics and other crises are something that the health care sector should always be prepared for. The priority need of the project is to provide a "European" response to the pandemic. The project is based on the awareness that, despite common problems, each EU country has dealt with the virus in a specific way and presents practices on which it is necessary to leverage to equip the health-care facilities and related professionals with more adequate transversal and technical skills to face future crises. The need is, in other words, to promote skills improvement and professional development of health-care operators by realizing a quality, European and EQF-aligned VET training offer.