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Council meeting - Barcelona, Spain, October 2001

Council Reports Contents

Annex 3
SWOT analysis

EURACT Council meeting
October 10–12, 2001
Barcelona, Spain

An action plan for EURACT

Having achieved the Core Content conference, and handed over responsibility for further developments to the European Society, it is time to take stock of past achievements as an organisation, and to plan our activities for the forthcoming years, building on our strengths and addressing our weaknesses. The following is my personal SWOT analysis, and some ideas on how the issues might be addressed.

It is suggested that small groups, facilitated by EB members will be set up during the Council meeting to discuss this analysis, and to consider this and to develop other ideas. Brief reports will be presented to a plenary session and priorities set for our future activities.

1. Strengths

1. Level of expertise in individual Council members and in the organisation
2. Success as an individual membership organisation
   ?? are we successful. Is this what we want?
3. Links with national colleges/societies
   varied – needs promotion
4. High level representatives from member countries – influence and opinion lead
   Very varied – needs promotion
5. Quality products to date – publications, conference contributions and courses
6. Enjoyment, support, and personal development
   Need empowerment re these – eg specify in person spec. for council members
   Send reports to colleges centrally via Agnes
   In country activities with all three networks
7. Umbrella organisation – single contact point for European teachers - is this true?

2. Weaknesses

1. Everyone is a volunteer, possibly a strength – a reality working in their own time, with variable support, both administrative and financial – very limited possible
2. Large variation in the contribution of individual members
   What is the reasons – lack of knowledge or poor motivation. Group is enervated in meetings but not in between – try to get groups to work
3. Failure to deliver agreed “products”
4. Lack of clear sense of purpose or relevance to individual members (Why should I renew my subscription?)
   Universal problem – members do not see benefit. ? teachers' courses? ? events for members? ? participation in big conferences? ?national meetings – language barrier? - ? obligation of council members to translate key documents? - ?roving course? - ?low cost fixed venue? - ?course for EURACT course teachers – Adam idea – task to develop local teachers?
   possible to access EU money – linking local activity groups
5. Very disparate needs as a result of differing levels of development in GP education
   distance based learning? ?regional meetings – eg Nordic, UK Holland Belgium?
6. Cost of Council meetings
   support will reduce participation? ?problems for local organisers? ?length of meeting – no social events – Friday and Saturday? Local venue luxury?
   Telematics?

3. Opportunities

1. The continuing emphasis on primary care in health care systems in Europe
2. Working more closely with the other networks nationally and at a European level
3. Developments that may follow the Core Content Conference.
4. Teaching opportunities in general practice for those training for a career in specialist medicine.
5. European projects to exploit

4. Threats

1. Further growth in the size of EURACT council
2. Our income only exceeds expenditure because we fail to complete projects
3. Recruitment crises in a number of countries threaten any moves to improve the quality of training.
4. The continuing dominance of narrow specialists the medical universities and in funding from health care systems.

Action Plan

Try to address obstacles to full engagement of Council members
(What stops us? Are we too lazy or to busy? No support or too much work?

Make inter-meeting activities achievable
Why don't we d what we say? Is it better to do a lot of things poorly, or one or two things really well?

Develop a focus on individual members
Dolores' point from last meeting – why should they join and what more should we do?

Develop a new focus on developed primary care systems
Jan's point from last meeting – should we become an academic link/forum?

Continue our activities with countries where family medicine is less developed
Continue the activities in the Service to members group

Improve collaboration with other networks
We have link-persons, and some bilateral working, but how should we develop this further?

Complete our current projects
See action points from Council reports.

Justin Allen