The financing of new beds of integrated continued care will increase 40%, announced the Secretary of State for Health, when he added that the Government also intends to review the rules of operation of this national network.
Under the Recovery and Resilience Plan (RRP), “we will have a funding per bed of 42 thousand euros which is 40% above the 30 thousand euros initially planned,” said Ricardo Mestre to Lusa news agency.
According to the Secretary of State, this increase to finance the opening of the new 5,500 long-term care hospitalization places foreseen in the RRP results from an analysis of the market, which found the impact of inflation on the rise in prices of materials and construction.
“The goal we have to complete the RNCCI by the end of this legislature is 5,500 beds, and this reinforcement of funding will allow us to reach this goal, enabling the RNCCI to reach more than 15,000 inpatient beds,” said Ricardo Mestre.
The decree already signed by the Minister of the Presidency, the Minister of Finance and the Secretary of State for Health also provides for a 40% increase in funding for new, less complex palliative care beds, with RRP funds for the two types of beds increasing from 177 million euros to almost 248 million.
On the day the RNCCI celebrates 17 years – it was created on June 6th, 2006 -, Ricardo Mestre also announced that the Government intends to “start a reformulation process” of the network, by reviewing its operation, the user referral rules, and the financing model.
These are “four policy guidelines for the future of the network”, among them increasing the outpatient and community response, in order to allow users to remain at home with the support of the RNCCI, said the Secretary of State.
According to Ricardo Mestre, the second objective is to enlarge the inpatient responses through the RRP investments, while the third objective is to increase the circulation flow of users, “organizing the responses according to what they need.
The fourth guideline for this review of integrated continued care consists of reformulating the processes, by reviewing the financing, the referral rules, the information systems, the professional staffing, that is, “everything that has to do with the functioning of the network,” he explained.
“What we want is for this response to be increasingly prepared for the challenges of an older population that effectively needs support in maintaining its quality of life, always working in conjunction with hospitals,” said Ricardo Mestre.
The RNCCI will also receive 23 new electric vehicles, as part of the acquisition of 780 in the next two years for the National Health Service, under the PRR.
According to an order signed by Ricardo Mestre and published today, which also provides for 18 mobile health units, of the 780 electric vehicles, 23 are specifically for the RNCCI, and the rest will be delivered to Local Health Units and Health Center Groupings.
According to the Ministry of Health, these vehicles will increase the capacity for proximity response in the community, namely at the homes of people who are in vulnerable situations.
