An amendment to the law on publicly financed health care services, recently published in Journal of Laws of the Republic of Poland, envisages a gradual increase on healthcare spending from 5,75% of GDP in 2022 to 6,8% of GDP in 2026.

The purpose of this amendment is to accelerate achievement of the anticipated level of healthcare spending and to determine the path for further growth. For instance, in the earlier amendment the planning horizon was limited to 2023 with the projected healthcare spending at 5,8% of GDP. In the recent amendment the forecast expenditure for 2023 has been increased to 6% of GDP and the forecast timeframe has been expanded to 2026 (5,75% of GDP in 2022, 6.0% in 2023, 6.2% in 2024, 6.5% in 2025 and to 6,8% n 2026).

Furthermore, according to this amendment, additional funds can be transferred to the health fund from the annual savings in the state budget in the form of special subsidies.

It is expected that the adopted changes will provide access to additional funds, which will amount to more than PLN 80 billion over 5 years, and thus will exceed PLN 215 billion in 2027. These funds will be spent on improving the quality of medical services and ensuring wider access to them, increasing salaries of medical personnel, modernizing infrastructure and technologies.

The amendment was published in the Journal of Laws (Dzienniku Ustaw, 2021 R. POZ. 1773) on Sept 29, 2021 and came into force 14 days after publication.

For further information, please contact Jane Smith at Grove Group Pharmaservices janesmith@groveonline.com or enquiries@groveonline.com.