Senate will amend "quality" laws

On Wednesday, senators dealt with two laws passed by the Sejm - the Law on Quality and an amendment to the Law on Patients' Rights and Patients' Ombudsman. They form a "quality" package that Health Minister Adam Niedzielski is keen on. And although Senate legislators upheld charges of unconstitutionality to both the Quality Act and the amendment to the Patients' Rights Act, introducing the Medical Events Compensation Fund, everything indicates that this time there will be no Senate veto. There will, however, be, it can be expected, numerous amendments - to both laws.

During the discussion of the Law on Quality in Health Care, it was raised that the authorization procedure, which is to condition obtaining a contract, will be carried out by the National Health Fund, which signs contracts with them for the provision of services. On the one hand, the Fund will be the payer, i.e. a party to the civil law contract, and on the other - the administrative entity on whose decisions the fate of the providers will depend. - However, shouldn't the law indicate an independent controlling entity? - asked Agnieszka Gorgoń-Komor (KO).

Wojciech Konieczny (Left), on the other hand, stressed that the law mentions nothing about the cost of introducing new pro-quality solutions. - How are hospitals supposed to improve and quality of services, when no sources of financing this quality are indicated? - he asked (rhetorically). Alicja Chybicka (KO) demanded that the minister show the indicators on which the quality assessment will be based before the Senate decides on the fate of the bill (which is scheduled for July 12). - This is the crux of this law and we should know it," she said.

The comments on the draft were also made by the medical self-government, in which an expert team was established to deal, among other things, with issues of accreditation of medical entities. The chairman of the team, former Deputy Health Minister Krzysztof Łanda, argued that a cardinal mistake was made in the construction of the regulations on accreditation, which will result in the politicization of the Accreditation Council. He said that accreditation is a process in which political considerations not only should not, but cannot play any role - which is the danger now. - Accreditation should be left to specialists, he argued.

Dorota Korycinska, representing patient organizations, proposed that patient satisfaction surveys be conducted after discharge and based on questionnaires available on the Fund's website. - In this way, we want to place consumer opinions outside the hospital's internal quality assessment system, so that there is no situation in which medical entities can manipulate ratings, she reasoned.

The Health Committee adopted the amendments prepared by the Senate Legislative Bureau, while the amendments submitted during the meeting by the social side are expected to be drafted and presented to the plenary session in July. A similar decision was made on amendments to the Law on Patients' Rights - here, too, despite allegations of unconstitutionality, a veto is not expected. The Senate will try to improve the bill. The chairman of the Council of Patients' Organizations, Rev. Arkadiusz Nowak, who was present at the committee's meeting, appealed to the government side and the parliamentary majority not to reject on principle the amendments submitted by the Senate because at least some of them, he said, actually have a chance to improve the current solutions.