The maneuver also introduced measures for the extension of temporary contracts and made changes to the rules governing the expenditure ceiling for NHS personnel.
“The staff is the essential lever of the National Health Service. With the Budget Law, we create the conditions for permanently hiring many professionals who have committed themselves in the dramatic months of the emergency. Job insecurity must always be fought. Even more so if it concerns those who take care of us every day “. Thus the Minister of Health, Roberto Speranza, commenting on the intervention of the financial maneuver on the stabilization of health personnel employed on a temporary basis during the pandemic (over 50 thousand units). Let’s see who will have the requirements defined by the rules included in the Budget law.
Extension of fixed-term contracts – The National Health System Bodies, having verified the impossibility of using staff already in service, as well as having recourse to the suitable ones placed in the competition rankings in force, will also be able to confer individual fixed-term assignments in 2022 (also by extending existing contracts), upon public notice, to the staff of the health professions, to the socio-health operators and to the medical specialists of the last and penultimate year of the course. In addition, for the medical specialists of the last and penultimate year of the course, independent work assignments, including coordinated and continuous collaboration, lasting no more than six months, may also be conferred.
Stabilization of health personnel – The law provides that, without prejudice to the provisions of the Madia Law (extended to 31 December 2022), the NHS entities will be able to recruit for an indefinite period, starting from 1 July 2022 and until 31 December 2023, of staff health workers and health professionals recruited on a fixed-term basis both through competitions and through the selections activated in March 2020. The requirement is to have accrued at 30 June 2022 at least 18 months of service in an NHS body, of which at least six months between 31 January 2020 and 30 June 2022. In any case, please note that the Regions will be able to make these assumptions always in compliance with the spending ceiling and the three-year plans of needs. As regards the estimated economic impact for contract extensions and stabilization, the technical report expects an expenditure of 690 million for 2022 and approximately 625 million from 2023. The resources are obviously drawn from the National Health Fund.
Staff expenditure ceiling – The personnel expenditure ceiling is modified in article 11 of the Calabria Decree Law, establishing that the expenditure for health personnel, at the regional level, can be increased by an amount equal to 10% of the increase in the Regional Health Fund compared to previous year, thus stabilizing this increase, currently expected only until 2021, and then decreasing to 5%. It is also established that from 2022 the further increase of 5% (already foreseen by the current legislation) will be subject to the adoption of a methodology for determining the staffing needs of NHS entities. Within 180 days of the entry into force of the Budget Law, the Minister of Health, in agreement with the Mef and subject to an agreement in the State-Regions Conference on the proposal of Agenas, in compliance with the total value of personnel expenditure, adopts with I decree the aforementioned methodology for determining the personnel needs of the NHS entities.
Nurse Times editorial staff