SPAIN LACKS CONCRETE HEALTH POLICY

The three main issues affecting health care in Spain last year were: the setting up of the Abril commission that analyzed and evaluated the country's national health care system; the continuation of the process of transferring the services of Insalud, the Spanish Institute of Health, to the autonomous communities; and the ministerial change.

The Abril commission (Marketletters passim) came up with a proposal for health reform that would result in changes in organization, management and financing along the lines of health care systems currently in existence in other European countries such as the UK, the Netherlands and Sweden.

This would mean the introduction of competition, and more responsibility for those professionals involved in the health care services, explained Juan Manuel Cabases Hita, professor at the department of economics at Navarra University, as he looked back at the year in an article that appeared in the Spanish magazine, Economistas, and which was reproduced in the Spanish financial daily, Cinco Dias.