Denmark must have 21 new health clusters that will be located around the country’s emergency hospitals.
The government, Danish Regions and the National Association of Local Authorities have agreed on this, the Ministry of Health writes in a press release
– Too many patients feel homeless in the system between the hospital, the municipality and the general practitioner.
– The idea is that you as a patient should not relate to who is responsible for the treatment. Citizens must be at the center.
– The collaboration must be far, far better than today, says Minister of Health Magnus Heunicke (S) about the problem that the clusters must solve.
The new clusters are part of a new structure for the health service, which must provide more coherence in the treatment, not least outside the big cities. At the same time, it must ensure that patients do not fall down between two chairs.
Cluster is a term that is used to gather activities within the same area to reap the benefits it can provide.
– With today’s agreement, we take a big and important step towards ensuring that the many patients we share across hospitals, municipalities and general practice will in future receive a treatment that is better connected, writes chairman of the Danish Regions Stephanie Lose (V), in the message.
The idea of making health clusters, which should be a new framework for the health service, was presented by the previous government under Lars Løkke Rasmussen. However, this meant that the regions were closed down. That is not the case in this agreement.
According to the press release, the new clusters will have a professional and a political part, where both regions, municipalities and general practice must be involved.
The new clusters will be responsible for the population in their area and ensure that treatment courses that can involve both hospitals, municipalities and regions. They must also be responsible for psychiatry.
– Now we take seriously the challenge of lack of coherence. It has been the Achilles heel of health care for far too many years.
– To that extent, we need to think about the efforts for the elderly and people with, among other things, chronic diseases and mental disorders better together across hospitals and municipalities and strengthen the quality of the local health service, writes Minister of Health Magnus Heunicke (S) about the agreement.
The agreement to make health clusters is part of the forthcoming major negotiations on a new health agreement in the Folketing, which is scheduled to start in the autumn.
In addition, the health clusters must fertilize the ground for the future, where significantly more elderly people are expected to arrive. It will place new demands on prevention and treatment outside hospitals.
Source: The Nordic Page