Bringing Europe together through primary care

At the end of August 2015, the European Forum for Primary Care (EFPC) held its 10th conference in Amsterdam. This represented a significant moment in the history of the EFPC and for Primary Health Care Research and Development (PHCRD). The conference brought together primary care researchers, practitioners and decision makers from across all parts of Europe as well as participants from the United States and Canada. The theme of the conference was ‘Integrated Primary Care: Research, Policy & Practice’. The keynote presentations and additional sessions represented a range of European and international perspectives on this theme and can be viewed on the EFPC website (http://www.euprimarycare. org/amsterdam/efpc-2015-amsterdam-conference30-august-1-september). Notably, the conference was well represented from a multi-disciplinary perspective with primary care participants including nurses, midwives, occupational health practitioners, physiotherapy, pharmacy as well as GPs and others. This in itself provides a very positive message about a European position on integration of primary care services in order to provide a more systematic and effective service for our communities. The Editors in Chief of PHCRD were honoured to announce that the journal is now formally affiliated with EFPC. This means that members of EFPC will be able to access the journal online, contribute to the editorial board, author new papers, propose and edit special issues and publish their position papers in the journal. This is a really positive step for the journal and for EFPC as we will be able to disseminate research and development activities that uphold our shared values and aims in the light of the wider global goals of primary care. The main aim of the EFPC is: