New agreement with general practitioners. A green light that provides for the extension of the agreement signed in July 2022 between the Emilia Romagna Region and the trade union organizations of the category, given the continuing shortage of professionals. The shared objective is to continue strengthening some extraordinary measures already identified in the previous agreement, to deal with the post-pandemic emergency.
For this reason, as an exception to the National Collective Agreement for General Medicine and on a transitional basis, the regional council has approved the scheme for extending the agreement between the Department of Health Policies and the FIMMG (Italian Federation of General Practitioners ), the SNAMI (National Autonomous Union of Italian Doctors) and the SMI (Union of Italian Doctors).
“The extraordinary measures already implemented and today confirmed and strengthened, are essential to ensure that first-level health coverage remains uninterrupted – says the regional councilor for health policies, Raffaele Donini -. This includes supporting general practitioners in their efforts to offer increasingly effective and widespread care and assistance”.
The objective of this agreement is to improve healthcare assistance in Emilia-Romagna, guarantee constant access to essential levels of service and strengthen territorial assistance, enhancing the contribution of general medicine. The new agreement extends the agreement established on 25 July 2022 and will remain valid until 30 June 2024. If some critical issues remain unresolved, the contract could be further extended.
The key points of the agreement
The details of the agreement are the same as the previous one and focus on limiting the number of people a general practitioner can serve as patients. During the first two years, general practitioners will be able to have 1,500 patients and, in the third year of the agreement, this limit can be raised, once certain conditions of shortage have been verified, to 1,800 patients, with a specific economic incentive. Those enrolled in specialist courses in general medicine will be able to carry out the agreed activity as a practical activity of the course, until they complete the expected monthly timetable. The young doctors will initially have up to a maximum of 1,000 patients during the first year, which can become 1,200 from the second year, with the possibility of reaching up to 1,500 on a voluntary basis.
The attending doctors will receive the assistance of an expert medical tutor in the sector.
In the face of specific commitments by general practitioners to increase the weekly working hours of study collaborators and nursing staff, the Region recognizes economic increases.
The Region, the trade unions and the Health Trusts are committed to maintaining the permanent table, already set up and operating, in which to deal with and simplify the bureaucratic procedures related to assistance.
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