The National Health Service (SNS) have announced that the deadline for using prescriptions and prescriptions for exams will be extended to 12 months, explaining that this is intended to reduce the 'bureaucratic tasks' of doctors.
“We are working so that, within a very short time, medical prescriptions and all prescriptions for complementary diagnostic and therapeutic means are valid for 12 months, instead of six months, or even shorter times, depending on the type of prescription that is made”, said Fernando Araújo, executive director of the National Health Service in Portugal.
Doctor Araújo, who was heard last week in the parliamentary Health committee, also pointed out several measures that are being taken to reduce bureaucracy in the SNS, giving the example of self-declaration of illness for absences from work of less than three days.
“We are talking about between 600,000 to 700,000 thousand instances per year. The time taken by doctors to make these certificates could be used for consultations”, explained the official, saying that this measure will have “an enormous impact”.
“It had been requested for more than 20 years, it was at the top of the priorities and had never been implemented”, he said, adding that, from April 1st 2023, it should be able to be done through the SNS24 platform.
Insisting with the deputies that the work of the Executive Board takes time, but it will be visible, he considered that it is not possible to have “an SNS exactly the same”, stressing:
“Times have changed”, he said, “the current SNS is an SNS that no longer responds to society's current needs. We have to change what needs to change to maintain the same principles: universality, quality, access. And for all that, we need to adapt, evolve and modify it”.
