The government has approved an amendment that will bring increased protection of young people's health and reduce administrative burdens

The amendment to the Act on the protection, promotion and development of public health should start on 1 June 2023. Solarium operators should no longer be allowed to provide sunbathing services by artificial UV sources to persons under the age of 18 after a new one. The authority of municipalities is complemented by a generally binding regulation to limit the operation of noise sources and vibrations, including public production of music. The amendment also amends, simplifies or abolishes a number of obligations on employers, natural persons, entrepreneurs and legal persons. It also strengthens health protection options for cosmetics and infant formulae and similar foods.
Key changes:
1. Optimising public health processes, reducing the burden of business

• the obligation for the employer to submit to the competent public health authority for assessment a proposal for the removal of asbestos from construction works is abolished; only the notification obligation 10 days before the start of work with the presentation of specified documents, without an administrative fee, will be re-established
• the obligation for the employer to draw up internal rules under heat stress from technology is removed
• the employer's obligation to draw up a working order for risky work due to heat or cold loads from the technology is removed
• the obligation to submit to public health authorities for approval of a recovery event (e.g. a children's camp) is removed, instead it provides for the organiser of the event to notify the competent public health authority, at least 7 days before its commencement; however, the organiser of the recovery event will continue to be obliged to comply with the obligations laid down by law and the regional authorities will continue to carry out checks
• In the light of the above, the Commission concludes that the measure constitutes State aid within the meaning of Article 107 (1) TFEU.
• will not be subject to an assessment in the context of binding opinions or works which do not affect public health, such as hot-water distribution, electrical connections, river adjustments, bridges, pipeline and the like

• the provisions on professional competence, the issue of certificates and certificates of competence, the requirements for the issue of a certificate of professional competence, the revocation and expiry of a certificate of professional competence and the keeping of a register of holders of a certificate of professional competence are clearly regulated.

2. Environmental hygiene area

• Solar operators will not be able to provide sunbathing services by artificial UV sources to persons under the age of 18. When using solarium, the body is exposed to artificial UV radiation sources. Based on current scientific knowledge, this radiation is classified by the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) as a proven carcinogen, a factor posing a particular health risk. In recent years, there has been a significant increase in the incidence of skin melanoma in the world, especially among young women. Research by dermatologists has shown that people who very often use solariums are two to three times more likely to develop cancer of this type. Sunbathing of the skin in the solarium is therefore not appropriate for some sensitive populations, including those under 18 years of age. The risk for the population in this age group is greater as the skin at this age is much thinner and more sensitive, and the skin is unable to produce enough pigment.
• allow those responsible for the operation of noise sources to lose responsibility for implementing measures to protect users in objects requiring noise protection in cases where they demonstrate (e.g. by measuring noise at the time of construction) that this obligation should have been fulfilled by the investor at the time of construction
• an obligation is added for municipalities to make available information (on the information boards) on bathing sites with the status of bathing water to a significant extent used by the general public during the bathing season. These are information processed and published on their websites by public health authorities. By making them available near the sites themselves, it will contribute to the development and attractiveness of the sites for visitors, but also to the protection of the health of the citizens of the municipalities concerned.

• Municipalities will be able to restrict the operation of noise sources and vibrations, including the public production of music, in their territory or in certain parts thereof, by a generally binding regulation.

3. The areas of nutrition hygiene, food safety and cosmetic products

• the determination of the obligation for natural persons - businessmen and legal persons to notify the ÚVZ SR the placing on the market of infant formulae, follow-on formulae, special medical foods and total diet replacement for weight control in Slovakia at the latest on the day of their placing on the market in the Slovak Republic together with the model of the label used for such food
• The requirements of the obligation to notify the public health authority of the placing on the market of food supplements in the Slovak Republic - the labelling of food for traceability purposes should be attached to the notification
• The SR SPA will keep, update and publish on its website lists of notified specific foods " (nutritional supplements, infant formula, follow-on formula, food for special medical purposes and total diet replacement for weight reduction) as well as businessmen who notified the food
• the notification of the placing on the market of novel foods in Slovakia for compliance with EU legislation is deleted
• determination of the obligation for natural persons - traders and legal persons to notify by electronic means the local competent DPO of the import of materials and articles coming into contact with food and food under the responsibility of the PRTI from third countries at least 24 hours prior to their import
• the date and manner of notification of the organisation of mass events linked to the provision of food or refreshments of the R&D&I shall be added no later than 48 hours before the date of the launch of the mass event, indicating the date and place of the mass event
• supplementing the competence of the SRC to issue a certificate of free sales of cosmetic products and certificates for good manufacturing practice
• competence in reporting serious adverse effects of cosmetic products is shifted from RUVZ to ÚZ SR

• Adding the competence of DPAs to take samples also for distance selling and to carry out control shopping indirectly under covert identity as a new measure to prevent the emergence of mass diseases in cosmetic products, in order to increase the safety of products on the market and to increase consumer health protection
• Adding the option for economic operators to take voluntary action to address shortcomings
• the possibility for the responsible person to comment on the findings and conclusions of national health surveillance is also added
• the obligation for economic operators to inform consumers for cosmetic products covered by RAPEX/Safety Gate notifications is added
• the addition of competence for RÚVZ

4. Field of preventive occupational medicine

• when the premises are put into service by public health authorities, the employer is given a larger time interval (4 months) to ensure a health risk assessment and to prepare a risk assessment (until 2 months)
  • Complementing the work of the occupational health service to the employer, prepares the technical documentation and provides synergies in the investigation of suspected occupational disease to public health authorities, prepares a proposal to include work as a risk work
  • if the occupational health specialist assesses the occupational disease suspected by the employee while performing the occupational health service for his employer, the occupational disease must be suspected by the Regional Commission for the Assessment of Occupational Disease
• Supplementing the period for maintaining medical assessments on medical fitness for work 10 years after the end of work (except for hazardous work where medical fitness assessments are kept for work 20 years after the end of work and work with exposure to carcinogenic and mutagenic factors where medical assessments are maintained for 40 years after the end of work)

• Alignment of the original terminology of very toxic substances and mixtures and toxic substances and mixtures with the terminology used in European chemical legislation - Acute toxic substances and mixtures.

5.Epidemiology

• a number of epidemiological concepts necessary for the application of preventive and repressive measures, which are lacking in the current version of the law, are added.
• The role of the CPO will also include, in coordination with the regional public health authorities, to ensure, every five years, that an immunological overview is carried out to determine the state of resistance of the population to communicable diseases. m
• The obligation for healthcare providers to actively supervise nosocomial diseases in a healthcare facility, including the obligation to provide synergies to the competent public health authority, is extended
• with effect from 1 January 2028, it is proposed that the healthcare provider providing institutional health care, to provide a hygienic-epidemiology regime and to prevent, monitor and analyse nosocomial diseases should have, in the working relationship of a physician with a professional degree of epidemiology, a physician with hygiene, an infectologist or microbiologist and a public health professional specialising in epidemiology.
• A group of mandatory communicable diseases is extended to report strains with clinically and epidemiologically relevant resistance mechanisms as well as infections and toxicogenic strains that are the most common eliciter of serious nosocomial infections, including diarrhoeal diseases in many patients.

6. Related

• regulate the provisions of administrative offences following other changes to the law to reflect the amended and new wording of the law
• following the comments of the Ministry of Transport of the Slovak Republic, the competence of the Ministry of Transport to order measures in the event of a threat to public health is supplemented by a decree
• At the same time, there is an obligation to publish the justification of the Decree, which contains the reasons for the decree and the recommendations of experts taken into account in the adoption of the Decree, within three working days following the announcement in the Government Gazette.