Senate rejects healthcare quality and patient safety bill

Objections to the bill were raised in the debate by the chairwoman of the Health Committee and the bill's rapporteur, Senator Beata Małecka-Libera. As she said, the document is an "incoherent conglomeration" of various unrelated provisions, and represents another step in the centralization of health care. As she stressed, a "devastating" opinion on the bill was presented by the Senate Legislative Bureau, according to which it raises fundamental systemic and constitutional objections, and it is not possible to remove them at this stage of the law's procedure. As the senator said, a critical assessment about the bill was also presented by the medical, medical and patient communities. This position was shared by the majority of senators.

The Law on Quality in Health Care and Patient Safety introduced mandatory authorization for medical entities providing publicly funded health care services. Authorization - confirmation of compliance with conditions regarding the place of providing health care services, medical personnel, equipment and medical apparatus - was to be issued for 5 years by the president of the National Health Fund. This meant the elimination of the tasks of the Health Care Quality Monitoring Center in the area of accreditation. The law also introduced an internal quality and safety management system, i.e. monitoring of so-called adverse events, which was mandatory from 2025. Healthcare providers, such as hospitals, were to be required to monitor adverse events, identify, report and record them, and analyze the causes. In addition, the law provided for mechanisms to protect medical personnel in connection with the reporting of an adverse event, which was intended to encourage the disclosure of as many such events as possible, without fear of possible sanctions and repressive actions related to it.

Instead of provincial medical event adjudication commissions, the law provided for the implementation of a two-instance extrajudicial medical event compensation system, operated by the Patient Ombudsman. Compensation for healthcare-related damages was to be provided to patients by the Medical Event Compensation Fund, established by the law.

Source: Senate of the Republic of Poland