Health agrees with communities on a series of commitments to rescue Primary Care

“We share concerns and we also share diagnoses, and from that point of view we have reached the commitment to work together in the search for solutions for our National Health System“, highlighted the Minister of Health, Monica Garciaat the press conference after the Interterritorial Council.

A meeting that ended in a very different way from how it began, marked by criticism from the PP because the extra increase of 1,000 annual places had not been included in the agenda, and which ended with the satisfaction of all directors for the commitments “torn” from the Ministry, as several of them expressed at the exit.

The singularities of each community will be studied

The first of the commitments has been to review the conditions of accreditation of Family and Community Medicine positions, but “always respecting and ensuring the quality of training” of resident doctors, which will allow more places to be gained over those already offered.

To this end, next week a working group will be launched that will culminate with the convocation, within two weeks, of a Human Resources Commission to analyze the proposals that the communities are making at this time.

From the Ministry, García has guaranteed, “each of the singularities of each of the communities“and it will be analyzed why they are not able to accredit all the places that Health offers each year.

“In some cases it has to do with rural care, in others with the lack of attraction of the specialty, in others even with the infrastructure,” he detailed before reiterating his commitment that he will work “side by side” with the counselors to see how the places can be increased.

Although training programs must be reviewed, for example with regard to tutoring, this will not mean that common criteria that “guarantee quality training” cease to exist. “We are not going to lower quality standards, but we are going to evaluate the conditions“, has underlined.

Up to 90% MIR leakage

But there is no point in increasing positions if working conditions are not improved,”including competencies, roles and debureaucratization“, something that the members of the Interterritorial have also agreed on.

García has valued the effort that all communities have made to train more professionals, especially in Primary Care, but the reality is that 9% of MIRs abandon their residency before finishing it and between 30% and 90%, depending of the territory, they do it as soon as they finish it.

Another of the agreements reached is to start working on the next Primary Care plan 2024-2025; They will do so on the basis of the previous one, of which García has given some data: of the 52 actions that were contemplated, more than 60% are in an advanced state or have been completed and 7 of the 13 objectives have adequate effectiveness, thus They will not start “from scratch.”

The intention is to also prepare it within a Permanent Primary Care Commission that Health has proposed. create and that will be discussed in a future Interterritoriala proposal that has been well received by the councilors.

The communities will complete the Registry of Health Professionals

For their part, the autonomies have guaranteed that they will complete the State Registry of Health Professionals (REPS) to be able to “understand where they are and who they are.

This is a registry that was created in 2012 with the purpose of facilitate the planning of needs of health professionals and coordinate the human resources policies of the National Health System, with data on all health professionals authorized to work in Spain; However, today 30% of these workers are missing.

Finally, the minister has assured that there will be no hole in residents this summer; The covid generation, those who began their residency in the summer of 2020 but had to delay it from June to September due to the pandemic, “will finish their training in a timely manner to fully complete their training programs.”

As he recalled, in the training plans for final year residents, the R4, it is contemplated that they can “autonomously take charge of the consultations and the rest of the healthcare” without tutoring.

What’s more, this is going to be a year “in which even two generations will coincide” in the summer, those who start it and those who finish it in September.