ECHS x European Collaborative Hospitals/Health Service Study

The European Collaborative Hospitals (from 1983, Health Services) Survey came into being as a result of a suggestion by Professor R Logan of the LSHTM at the bi-annual meeting of the Association of Schools of Public Health in the European Region in 1977, that the time was appropriate for a joint research project comparing the input and outcome of Health Services in different European centres. An initial 8 centres were involved: Limerick, Eire; Colchester, Great Britain; Londonderry, Northern Ireland; Uelzen, Germany; Viana do Castello, Portugal; Mostar, Yugoslavia; Mikkeli, Finland; and Nor Trondelag, Norway. Norway and Northern Ireland subsequently dropped out (in 1979 and 1983 respectively) but Almelo (The Netherlands) and Skovde (Sweden) were added in 1979 and 1982. The project was to consist of a small fairly informal network meeting in regular workshops with no formal funding structure. From 1980 until 1992 regular spring and autumn workshops were held at the various centres. Some short-term and conference funding was obtained from the WHO and the EEC but no regular source of funds was forthcoming and the final workshop was held in 1992. A brief chronology of the activities of ECHSS follows on page 2.