Pedro Pita Barros is Professor of Economics at the Nova School of Business and Economics, Lisbon, Portugal. Email: ppbarros@fe.unl.pt
Eurohealth OBSERVER
PORTUGAL'S
HEALTH POLICY UNDER A FINANCIAL RESCUE
PLAN
By: Pedro Pita Barros
Summary: Under the terms of its current financial rescue plan, Portugal has launched a number of reforms in its health care sector which are a combination of cost-containment measures as well as strategies to introduce greater efficiency into the health system. The areas of intervention are wide-ranging, including the pharmaceutical market; prescription practices; fiscal credits applied to private health expenditures; health professionals and human capital; the public
private interface in health care; National Health System management;
primary care; hospitals; and public health sub-systems. It will take some time to obtain a quantitative assessment of these policies' effects.
Keywords: Portugal, Memorandum of Understanding, Health Sector Measures, Health Policy Reform
Introduction
Portugal has now completed fifteen months of its financial rescue programme, following the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) on 17 May 2011.
The new government's' policies are conditioned to a considerable extent by the MoU, in particular health care policies, which make up one of the major areas in the MoU, with more than 50 measures and actions. These measures, a combination of cost-containment actions as well as strategies to introduce greater efficiency into the National Health Service (NHS) on a permanent basis, range from the very detailed to the relatively vague and
• Elected on 5 June 2011 and entered office on 21 June 2011.
general, and a specific timetable for implementation has been set. At present, while it is relatively easy to assess formal compliance with the MoU, there is not as yet enough information to obtain a quantitative assessment of these policies' effects. This article discusses some of the main changes and their status in terms of implementation (see Table 1).
Pharmaceutical market
One of the first areas of intervention is the pharmaceutical market, which is addressed in more detail in a previous Eurohealth article.D Briefly, the MoU sets precise targets for public expenditure on pharmaceutical products. For 2012, theEurohealth incorporating Euro Observer -Vol.18 I No.3 I 2012
and laboratories) have been easier to deal with than issues related to NHS human resources.
References
II Barros PP. Pharmaceutical market reforms in Portugal under the Memorandum of Understanding.
Eurohealth 2012;18(1):33-36.
El Barros PP. Health policy reform in tough times: The case of Portugal. Health Policy 2012;106(1 ):17-22.
!I Barros PP. Is double coverage worth it? Evidence from Portuguese health subsystems. Mimeo. Lisbon:
Nova School of Business and Economics, 2010.
Eurohealth OBSERVER
Eurohealth incorporating Euro Observer -Vol.18 I No.3 I 2012
