Health Ministry to present bill on quality in healthcare and to postpone new regulations on emergency services

2010-08-26

The Polish Ministry of Health would like to introduce incentives to medical providers offering higher standards of treatment, as deputy health minister Marek Haber revealed during an interview for Gazeta Prawna. As early as in September the Ministry plans to release a new bill on quality in healthcare which will stipulate, for example, bigger National Health Fund’s (NFZ) contracts for healthcare providers offering high-quality services.
Meanwhile, the Ministry has decided to postpone by two years the entry into force of regulations concerning specialists authorised to work in emergency ambulances. Currently, there are no restrictions concerning medical specialisations entitled to work in ambulances. According to the new regulations, only anaesthesiologists, intensive care specialists and internal medicine specialists would be allowed to work in ambulances till 2020; thereafter emergency services would employ only emergency medicine specialists. The minister explained that the coming into force of the new regulations has been postponed in order to ensure that all emergency service providers have sufficient staff. In the transition period providers that employ doctors with the right specialisations would receive higher NFZ’s financing.