The Ministry of Health of Ukraine presented a report on the results of public consultations on the introduction of professional licensing of doctors along with recommendations of the medical community on the relevant draft law.
In the period from April to June this year, the Ministry of Health of Ukraine and its partners held 12 public consultations in the format of group discussions. They were attended by more than 1,000 doctors, heads of health cate institutions and health care executives from all over the country.
“The experience of democratic countries shows that engaging citizens to discuss and develop a policy is very effective. In Ukraine, new policies have been implemented without citizen participation for many years. Now this is changing. Public consultations on licensing of doctors is just one example of the MoH’s interaction with the public. Since discussing the concept of changes to health care financing in 2016, we have been engaging a wide range of stakeholders in all stages of the health care system transformation,” Ulyana Suprun, Acting Minister of Health of Ukraine, said.
Professional licensing is a new system of access to the medical profession. It establishes the personal responsibility of doctors for the quality of medical care provided while recognizing that the most important part of the doctor’s work is professionalism, knowledge and their practice.
“We are introducing a transparent, clear and independent system of professional licensing of doctors instead of a certification system. Along with the changes in university medical education and the introduction of continuous professional development, medical licensing will lead to the improved quality of medical care, increased professional level and motivation of doctors, increased doctor-patient trust and improved status of this profession in a few years. During the consultations, we made sure that Ukrainian doctors understood that while being ready to help change the system and change the doctor’s role in this system,” Oleksandr Linchevsky, Deputy Minister of Health of Ukraine, said.
The main issues of public consultations were the creation and operation of a Licensing Board as a body responsible for the process of issuing, suspending and revoking professional licenses of doctors (formation procedure, selection criteria and rotation of Licensing Board’s members as well as criteria for renewal and revocation of licenses). There also were consultations on the work of doctors who already have licenses during the transition period.
“The concept of professional licensing of doctors that will be submitted to the new Government will allow to replace numerous corruption risks and abuse of administrative resources with a clear and simple system based on the requirements for continuous professional development. The proposed solutions make it possible to replace subjective and bureaucratic approaches to professional certification of doctors with a transparent licensing system. The BRDO team started working on a draft law to establish principles of access to the medical profession at the legislative level,” Oleksiy Dorohan, Chairman of the Board of the Better Regulation Delivery Office, said.
According to the results of public consultations, most doctors believed that:
- Medical experience, no records of a criminal or corruption offense confirmed, higher medical education and citizenship of Ukraine are mandatory requirements for a member of the Licensing Board.
- Compliance with the requirements for continuous professional development (CPD), including getting 50 CPD points per year, and no grounds to consider suspending or revoking a license are essential for the automatic renewal of a doctor’s license.
- There should be the following reasons to suspend a license with the possibility of its further renewal: insufficient number of CPD points in the reporting period, a Clinical Expert Commission’s (CEC) or court’s decision, violation of treatment protocols or malpractice confirmed.
- Licenses can be revoked only by decision of the Licensing Board or a court. The reason for such an extreme sanction may be a failure to comply with professional standards and treatment protocols confirmed by an internal investigation of the LB or a CEC’s conclusion as well as by a court decision.
- Five years is a sufficient transition period.
- All doctors should pass an exam during the transition period.
- The types of educational activities that will be considered as the CPD for doctors should not be restricted to a doctor’s occupation, event format or in any other way.
These conclusions will certainly be taken into account in drafting the law, which is expected to be submitted to the parliament by the end of September, and regulatory by-laws on the professional licensing of doctors.
Public consultations were conducted by the Ministry of Health of Ukraine together with the Better Regulation Delivery Office, with the assistance of the National Democratic Institute and the Institute “Republic” and supported by the United Kingdom Government and the Good Governance Fund (GGF). This series of consultations was made possible by the generous support of the British people through the UK’s Department for International Development as part of the Good Governance Fund. The views expressed in this presentation are the sole responsibility of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Department for International Development or the Her Majesty’s Government.
You can view the presentation here. The analytical report and other materials are available here.