The Valencia Region Minister of Health, Ana Barceló, held a meeting this Tuesday with the representatives of the entities and associations linked to Primary Care in the Valencian Community to address the objectives of the new Strategic Framework for Primary and Community Care 2022-2023, which will mean an organisational improvement, care and an increase in resources allocated to health centres.
On International Day of Primary Care, the Minister of Health wanted to highlight the importance of Primary Care within the public health system in the Valencian Community and stated that “every day we work to improve the care that citizens receive and so that health centres have more and better resources to be able to respond to the care needs of the population”.
Barceló has advanced aspects related to the Action Plan for Primary and Community Care, the document that details and develops the actions contemplated in the Strategic Framework and which has been sent to the Ministry of Health to opt for co-financing with state funds of some of the initiatives included in the Strategic Framework.
Among these measures is the co-financing of the new technological equipment with which the health centres will be provided, “more than 2,000 new treatment and diagnostic equipment, which will speed up and increase the resolution capacity of the health centres “, as pointed out by Ana Barceló.
Regarding technological equipment, health centres will have new fixed and portable ultrasound machines, retinography, Doppler, cameras for teledermatology, dermatoscopes, electrocardiographs, blood pressure monitoring devices, defibrillators and complete equipment for emergency care in rural environments.
In this way, “in addition to facilitating the work carried out by health professionals in health centres, the increase in technological equipment will make it possible to speed up the performance of diagnostic tests, prevent patients from traveling to other centres and, ultimately, offer a better quality of care”, highlighted Barceló.
326 million for the Strategic Framework for Primary Care
The incorporation of new technology to improve resolution capacity is one of the measures contemplated in the new Strategic Framework for Primary and Community Care 2022-2023, launched by the Ministry of Health and which has a budget of 326 million euro allocated to the improvement of infrastructures, equipment and information systems, as well as to the increase in human resources in the health centres of the Valencian Community and the implementation of a new assistance and organisational model in the centres.
According to Barceló, “the aim is to consolidate this level of care as the backbone of the health system. For this reason, in addition to the initial budget for these two years to renew Primary Care (326 million), in the coming years resources will continue to increase until reach 25% of the total health budget by 2025”. In fact, the Valencian Community is already the fourth with the highest percentage allocated in Spain with 15.1%, according to data from the Ministry of Health.
1,613 new places in Primary Care
The objective of the new Primary Care model is to adapt health care to the new reality. In this way, it is intended to respond to the chronicity and aging of the population, which is why the staff will be increased and the new technologies and information systems will be promoted.
In fact, the current Primary Care staff is going to increase by 13%, and this year there will be 1,613 more places, which will allow the ratios to be reduced below the existing recommendations. For this, the Ministry of Health is going to invest 130.7 million euro.
In addition, in terms of material resources, the investment in technology and infrastructure for 2022 and 2023 amounts to 188 million euro. Of the total, more than 76 will be for the construction of new health centres; and 8 million will go to improvements in information systems.
More agile and efficient organisational system
The health centres will have three differentiated coordinations: medical; nursing and administration/admission. The goal is to achieve greater agility and efficiency in healthcare. To this end, indicators of the primary teams will be established in the management agreements in order to improve particular aspects identified in each centre.
All the actions contemplated in the Strategic Framework for Primary Care aim to optimise clinical care, and mechanisms will also be established to improve coordination between the different levels of care, from primary to specialised, with mental health, public health, as well as the socio-health areas and educational.
Finally, it should be remembered that work is being done on a decree for the implementation of mechanisms to encourage the occupation of positions that are difficult to cover.
“We are going to create a powerful primary care system that will allow it to become the main axis of Valencian health. All the measures that are going to be put in place are aimed at strengthening the system, modernising it and, above all, respond to the needs of the citizens”, indicated Barceló.
