Changes to healthcare introduced
PR dla Zagranicy
Victoria Bieniek
01.12.2017 08:30
A new law to encourage general practitioners to play a bigger role in the treatment of patients entered into force on Friday.
Photo: SquareSpace/Pixabay.com (CC0)
Under the new law, family doctors will play a greater role in diagnostics and prevention and will coordinate patients' specialist care.
The new law is set to become fully implemented in 2020, with willing doctors entering a pilot programme to test the new system in 45 healthcare centres as of next year.
According to Sylwia Wądrzyk-Bularz, a spokeswoman for Poland's National Health Fund, 620 doctors have volunteered for the pilot programme.
Before the new law is implemented patients will continue to queue for their specialist consultations and the role of GPs and family doctors will still be largely limited to giving referrals.
The new law complements the government's "networked hospitals" plan for overhauling the system for funding public hospitals, introduced on 1 October, which is hoped to help cut hospital waiting lists for specialist treatment. (vb/pk)
Source: IAR