Zero funding, too many hospitals and too little innovation: this is no way to reform public healthcare
Neglected care on the ground and outdated monitoring mechanisms together with the total absence of fresh resources and the lack of citizen involvement are among the main critical aspects of the draft enabling act that is supposed to update care
Key points
The Draft delegated law on the reorganisation and strengthening of the National Health Service, together with those on pharmaceutical legislation and the health professions, confirms a moment of governmental ferment in the health sector. And this is good news, because it is indicative of an awareness of the need to get a grip on the SSN.
However, the difference for the enforceability of the right to health will be the 'how' we get a grip on it.
For this reason, Salutequità has carried out through its Observatory an analysis of the text of the DDL Delega for the reform of the SSN with the aim of identifying the criticalities present and the hope of stimulating Parliament to perfect the text.
The National Health Plan is missing
The three delegations to the government on healthcare come in the absence of the drafting and approval of the new National Health Plan (the last one refers to the three-year period 2006-2008), with respect to which the priority and start of work has been announced for over two years. It is the Minister of Health's latest guidelines that provide for its approval. In particular, the act of address 2025 attributed to the National Health Plan 2025-2027 the function of 'vision of the health system for the coming years, in terms of strategic objectives and interventions necessary to address the new needs and the profound transformations taking place in society'. To date, no draft has yet been sent to the Regions. The Health Pact is also stuck at 2019-2021, under extension by 'law'. Instead, the choice was made to move directly to the delegations to the government.
Remaining role of Parliament
The SSN was established by a State Law (833/78) and is one of the most important public infrastructures in our country: it serves to substantially realise the only Right that the Constitution defines as 'fundamental', namely the right to Health. And for which Italia will invest over 142 billion euros in 2026. Despite this, Parliament's role in the DDL delegated to reform the SSN is residual. In fact, the text envisages that the draft legislative decrees be sent to the parliamentary commissions for the acquisition of a non-binding opinion for the government only.
Moreover, Parliament will only have thirty days to formalise its opinion, unlike the sixty days provided, for example, for the opinion on draft legislative decrees on pharmaceuticals. A greater role for Parliament in the reasoning behind a reform of such great scope and impact is indispensable.
