Hospitals will have to save three billion euros by 2017, according to a document from the Ministry of Health.
Austerity cure at the French hospital. By 2017, hospitals in France will have to save three billion euros, according to a detailed plan in a document from the Ministry of Health, and published by the newspaper Challenges.
The amount may make you dizzy, but the ministry was reassuring. “The savings must be understood not as a reduction in expenditure, but as a controlled evolution of the increase in expenditure”. In fact, hospital expenditure continues to increase, due to the aging of the population and the increase in the number of chronic pathologies, in particular. It would therefore be a question of “controlling” this exponential increase, and not of cutting with great blows of the plane.
22,000 jobs eliminated
Not sure that the argument appeases the employees of the sector. Because the first measure will target the wage bill, the control of which should report 860 million euros, according to government calculations.
Thus, 22,000 jobs will have to be eliminated by 2017, or 2% of the workforce in the hospital public service. According to the French Hospital Federation (FHF), the payroll represents 70% of the budget of establishments.
Group purchasing
On the purchasing side, hospitals will have to step up a strategy initiated a few years ago. Indeed, establishments are already encouraged to meet to shop for medicines – the first item of expenditure for the hospital – as well as medical equipment. Hospital purchasing groups have multiplied; there are now more than 340, according to the FHF.
“Pooling hospital purchases and obtaining better prices from suppliers should free up 1.2 billion euros”, quotes the newspaper. The government is also banking on price cuts for the most expensive drugs and medical devices, which will bring in 350 million.
Outpatient surgery
Sleeping in the hospital after an operation can be convenient, but it weighs on the accounts of the Social Security. Especially since all the interventions do not require to stay 24 hours in a medical environment. The government has therefore made the development of outpatient surgery a major focus of its economic strategy. It allows patients to leave the hospital the same day as the operation.
Thus, between 2007 and 2013, the number of outpatient stays jumped by 38%. By 2017, the government estimates that their multiplication will generate savings of 400 million euros. The ministry has an ambitious target of 57% of outpatient operations in 2017, compared to 43% today. The reduction in hospital stays should save 600 million euros.
These measures should make it possible to comply with the Ondam (the national health insurance expenditure target) which regulates the increase in health expenditure. It was set at 2.1% for the year 2015, against 3.1% in 2014.
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