'Long waiting lists? Tests and examinations can also be carried out privately'.

"Those who need to have an MRI scan within 30 days will be able to have it done in the public hospital or in private contracted hospitals, and we are also evaluating the possibility of having it done if necessary by resorting to intramoenia". The Minister of Health Orazio Schilacci from the Trento Festival of Economics reiterates that he is ready "to put his face to the wheel" on waiting lists, the number one enemy of Italian patients, 3 million of whom give up treatment precisely because the queues for an examination or test are too long.

In the "Schillaci decree" expected in the Council of Ministers next 3 June, which looks more and more like an ambitious mini-reform of healthcare, work is being done on a tool that will allow citizens when they call the Cup to always get the service they need 'on time'. "The most important aspect that we will try to achieve with this decree-law is that when a person needs to have an examination they are given the opportunity to do it on time for their pathology," the minister confirms. In practice, in the event that the hospital is 'full' and not able to guarantee the expected time based on the urgency of the service (normally indicated in the prescription), the patient will be given the possibility of obtaining the service from a private hospital that has an agreement with the hospital (free of charge or against payment of a co-payment). The possibility of the Asl (local health authority) paying the patient intramoenia for the examination or diagnostic test is also being studied, but in addition to the knot of economic coverage - on which the Ministry of the Economy is working in these days for this and other measures of the decree - there are technical details of no small importance to be overcome (starting with which rates to pay to doctors).

What is certain, however, will be the activation of a platform - which will be set up by Agenas together with the Regions - to 'monitor in real time the situation of services with the relative waiting lists region by region' and by type of service, because today there is no real snapshot of the situation. Another point now established by the decree will be the unification of the public and private accredited booking agendas - currently effective only in some regions - to which the Cup will sort the patient according to availability: 'the problem with waiting lists is that of really knowing how much is missing, and so I am convinced that by rationalising and putting the agendas together, times will fall significantly'. With an absolute ban on 'closing' agendas, i.e. informing citizens that they cannot book a service: 'It is illegitimate, the law does not allow it and we will ensure that no one does it any more'.

Among other things, the decree - after an initial increase already provided for in the last budget manoeuvre - aims to further raise the spending ceiling for the health service's recourse to the purchase of services from accredited private companies: 'There are those who ideologically see the accredited private sector as the enemy,' Schillaci goes on to emphasise. 'Accredited private is public. Citizens go to an accredited private hospital, if they go to the public one, they often do not even know it. The important thing is that, if a citizen does a service, he does it with the co-payment or if exempt without paying it, and does it in a high quality facility'.

The ceiling on private individuals is not the only ceiling the minister wants to touch in this measure on waiting lists, which was also strongly supported by the prime minister herself, Giorgia Meloni. After 20 years, Schillaci - who has had him in her sights since 'day one' of her inauguration - is also aiming to touch up the hated expenditure ceiling on the recruitment of doctors and nurses (you cannot spend more than you did in 2004 minus 1.4 per cent): there will be an initial 'relaxation' in the decree, but the goal is to get to the end of the year in the manoeuvre to definitively overcome it: "This is the project: we have been working on it with the MEF for almost two years. If we want to do more examinations and more therapies we need more staff'.