HEALTH AND PUBLIC HEALTH POLICIES IN PORTUGAL: FOCUS ON QUALITY AND SAFETY IN HEALTH IN THE NEW MILLENNIUM (2000-2014)

Abstract

Between 2000 and 2005, there was a focus on public health policies based on the complementarity of the private and social sectors, on the articulation between care networks and on the corporatization of hospitals. The definition of a national network of long-term care was reflected in the National Health Plan 2004-2010 and a new legal regime for hospital management was approved. The Health Regulatory Authority was created.

In the new millennium, there were setbacks and advances in the definition of public policies, some separate measures and a lack of continuity in implementation, monitoring and evaluation: the attribution of competences in terms of quality in health to various entities, the attribution of Quality to the Institute of Quality in Health and its extinction in 2006, leading to the compartmentalization of clinical quality in the Directorate-General for Health and organizational quality in the Central Administration of the Health System I.P.  and the creation and extinction of the Health Quality Agency, with the transfer of organizational quality to the Directorate-General for Health in 2008.

Until 2014, the creation of the Department of Quality in Health based in the Directorate-General for Health in 2009 and the formulation for the first time of public policies for quality and safety in health, expressed in the National Strategy for Quality in Health 2009-2014, stood out. The creation of the department and the National Strategy are pillars that underpin public policies for quality and safety in health. Based on these initiatives, future actions and decisions in relation to public health should consider the established political measures, in the search for continuous improvement of the quality and safety in the health of the population.