Currently, in Slovakia there is a shortage of health facilities providing long-term healthcare and palliative healthcare, which makes this care unavailable to those who are dependent on it. Achieve the availability, quality and efficiency of long-term palliative health care - this is the aim of the proposed legislation from the workshop of the Ministry of Health approved today by the government of the Slovak Republic. It will be care not only in medical institutions but especially in the home or other natural environment.
To achieve this condition is included draft law 576 on health care, health care services the definition of long-term care, the definition of palliative healthcare and the definition of the scope of the data needed to monitor the availability and evaluation of the quality and effectiveness of such care. This bill complements the activities of social assistance facilities as well as nursing care as a follow-up healthcare and long-term nursing care The draft law defines the support team, the application of a multi-dicissisplinary approach to the provision of healthcare, as well as the right of the person to whom healthcare is provided to provide spiritual service and social assistance - thus the Ministry also responds to trends in other landscapes.
In order to improve quality and better coordination of healthcare and prevent repeated hospitalizations, it is mandatory for healthcare providers who have concluded a contract with the health insurance company to collect legally determined data on care provided in long-term healthcare and to submit these data to the health insurance company and subsequently to the health insurance company in anonymous form to the Ministry of Health of the Slovak Republic. The amendment sets out the reimbursements of this long-term healthcare and palliative healthcare so as to ensure adequate coverage of the economically eligible costs of healthcare providers in connection with the above-mentioned changes so that they can fulfil their function in the required quality and at an adequate level. The Ministry of Health foresees that sufficient and relevant data on the availability of long-term care will be obtained within a two-year period, on the basis of which the quality of this care will be evaluated and the subsequently adjusted method of financing it without the need for regulation by the Ministry. The availability of long-term health care and palliative health care is part of the Programme Statement of the Government of the Slovak Republic and results from the Charter of Patients' Rights, by which the Slovak Republic is bound.