Germany wastes large amounts of money in the healthcare system and uses nursing staff and doctors inefficiently. This is the result of a report by a committee of experts appointed by the Federal Ministry of Health. Accordingly, structural deficiencies and inefficiency are a more acute problem than the shortage of skilled workers.
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“We have to stop wasting the resource of skilled workers in the health sector,” said the chairman of the Expert Council for Health and Care, Michael Hallek, at the presentation of the report in Berlin. The work in nursing and patient care must be organized new and more intelligently, with the same quality.
Simply adding more staff won’t solve any problem. “We are brutally organized in Germany,” Hallek continued. A lot of money is wasted, skilled workers are overloaded and citizens are not provided with satisfactory care.
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Expert advice calls for reforms
In an international comparison, the number of employees in the health sector relative to the population in Germany is in the top group. Things look different when it comes to the patients being treated. Internationally speaking, Germany only ends up in the bottom third. According to the experts, this is due to a high number of inpatients and a long period of stay in the hospital. There are also more part-time workers in Germany. Accordingly, it takes a lot of workers to fill a full position.
Reforms in the healthcare system are necessary, the committee said. In the coming years, due to the shortage of skilled workers and the aging of society, there will tend to be fewer nurses, doctors and other health professionals available. However, the population’s need for care will increase.
In the opinion of the Expert Council, patients should receive more outpatient care instead of inpatient care. There is also a need for fewer unnecessary emergency operations and shorter stays for patients in clinics.
Lauterbach warns of a shortage of doctors
Federal Health Minister Karl Lauterbach (SPD) reiterated his warning of a worsening shortage of doctors. “Up to 10,000 doctors leave their profession every year,” he said. He expects there will be a shortage of around 140,000 doctors by the end of the 2030s. Most of them were currently working full time. The younger doctors who came along worked much more often part-time.
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Although many doctors from abroad are still moving to Germany, this trend will slow down in the coming years, said Lauterbach. 5,000 general practitioners’ practices are already unoccupied. In addition, there is a foreseeable shortage of around 50,000 doctors who have not been trained in recent years.
Germany wastes large amounts of money in the healthcare system and uses nursing staff and doctors inefficiently. This is the result of a report by a committee of experts appointed by the Federal Ministry of Health. Accordingly, structural deficiencies and inefficiency are a more acute problem than the shortage of skilled workers.
“We have to stop wasting the resource of skilled workers in the health sector,” said the chairman of the Expert Council for Health and Care, Michael Hallek, at the presentation of the report in Berlin. The work in nursing and patient care must be organized new and more intelligently, with the same quality.