The permanent consultation table between the Ministry of Health and the Forum of scientific societies of Italian hospital and university clinicians (Fossc) is born. Objective: to start a collaboration to implement the Pnrr, the national recovery and resilience plan, the drafting of a reform of the reference ministerial decrees for health (Ministerial Decrees 70 and 77) and the adaptation of our country to the new European regulations on conducting clinical trials. The decision was taken after a meeting between Minister Orazio Schillaci and a delegation from the Fossc Forum, during which a substantial agreement was verified in the analysis on the current difficulties of the National Health Service – explain the scientific societies in a note – and on the initiatives and proposals for improvement and future prospects.
“We are satisfied with the result achieved and we thank the minister for the attention he has given us – says Francesco Cognetti, coordinator of Fossc – As representatives of the clinical world, we are deeply concerned about the current crisis of the NHS and the future prospects of healthcare in our country. Our Forum was born with this aim: to bring together the most important Italian scientific societies to finally start a lasting dialogue between specialists on the major issues concerning health and, above all, the hospitals of our country. For this reason we have guaranteed the minister our most complete and effective collaboration”. In this particular historical moment, continues the Fossc, “we also consider the redefinition of the relationship between hospital and territory a priority. It is a dichotomy that for too many years has divided our national health system in two and which generates great difficulties for millions of citizens”.
“The provisions of the Pnrr on territorial structures, taken on by the previous government without consulting Italian clinicians – continues the Forum of scientific societies – are, however, extremely difficult to implement and also lack organizational models and definitions of competence and roles in carrying out clinical activities assistance and do not provide any indication on the integration between hospitals and local medicine in the assistance of chronically ill patients. Therefore, they do not resolve all these problems and the time has come to hear the voice of the experts as well”.
“Adequate and timely interventions are needed to solve a structural crisis that we have been dragging on for too many years – the clinicians press – We have a series of initiatives and proposals to put forward to solve problems such as the lack of hospital beds, the modernization of hospitals, the crisis in the Emergency Department resulting from the profoundly critical situation of the hospitals themselves, the terrible shortage of specialist doctors and nurses, but decisive investment interventions in medical disciplines are also necessary together with a higher consideration of the strategic value of the professional element from the point of view scientific, organizational and operational”.
Clinicians also say they are “and not a little” concerned about the scarcity of resources allocated to Healthcare both in the 2023-2025 Def and in the Budget law proposal for 2023, with additional resources that “will be completely used to compensate for the increases” in energy costs and inflation and “will make us return to levels of health expenditure on GDP that are even lower than in the pre-pandemic era (6.3% compared to an average of 8.8% for the 37 OECD countries, including of which France and Germany with about 10%)”. Inevitably in this situation, they warn, “the contribution to health care expenditure of private citizens will grow further, which already last year reached the figure of no less than 37 billion euros, already a noticeable increase compared to the 8-12 billion of the previous 10 years” .
In addition to Cognetti, the meeting at the ministry was attended by Fossc, representing the 30 participating scientific societies, Paolo Corradini (Italian Society of Hematology), Fabio De Iaco (Italian Society of Emergency Medicine), Diego Foschi (Italian College of surgeons), Dario Manfellotto (Federation of Associations of Internal Hospital Managers), Francesco Romeo (Italian Heart and Circulation Foundation), Giovanni Ricambi (Italian University Gynecological Association) and Ivan Cavicchi (Professor of Sociology and Health Organization and Philosophy of Medicine) .