The Ministry of Health approved the Model Regulation for a Hospital District, determining the organisational principles of hospital districts operation, as well as rights and obligations of the authorities cooperating within the boundaries of a hospital district.

As Deputy Minister of Health Pavlo Kovtonyuk, reminded, the hospital district was not a separate legal level of executive power organisation, a separate legal or business entity and it would be established on the basis of criteria set forth in the Procedure for Establishment of Hospital Districts as approved by Resolution No. 932 of the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine, dated 30 November 2016.

City (in the cities of Oblast (Regional) subordinance), Rayon (District) Councils and Councils of amalgamated territorial communities cooperating in the area of health care are participants in a hospital district.

The Hospital Council shall be established in a hospital district with the aim of determining problematic issues, coordinating actions, developing proposals with respect to the implementation of the state health care policy at the hospital district level, as well as the organisation and operation of health care in the hospital district.  It operates like an advisory body established by participants in the hospital district.

The Hospital Council has the authority to develop proposals to be subsequently approved by the participants in the hospital district. In particular, the proposals in question include the following:

• a long-term development plan for the hospital district;
• reorganisation and conversion of institutions providing secondary care within the territory of the hospital district;
• determination of promising health care institutions;
• appointment and removal of managers of the municipally owned healthcare institutions within the boundaries of the hospital district, etc.;
• inter-budgetary transfers between the participants in the hospital district for the purposes of funding secondary care programmes.

The Hospital Council shall prepare the hospital district development plan for five years, which plan contains annual sub-aggregates for achieving final performance indicators and which should be approved by a resolution of local Councils - participants in the hospital district.

The development plan shall describe goals and objectives, principles and stages of reorganisation of the network of health care institutions in the hospital district with the aim of bringing their functional capacities (workforce capacity, equipment) in line with the prescribed requirements.

The hospital district development plan, pursuant to the order, should comprise the following sections:

• a brief narrative of the hospital district strategic development (objective, analysis of the then current situation, strategic goals, tasks, and ways of fulfilment of targets and achievement of the strategic goals, and expected results);
• description of the patients' routes within the hospital district (to be attached as a separate addendum);
• optimal allocation of functions regarding the delivery of health care among the participants in the hospital district and determination of the types and extent of medical aid to be provided by health care institutions within its territory in accordance with the patients' routes in the course of obtaining services of the primary and secondary care (to be attached as a separate addendum);
• list of promising health care institutions in the district;
• development plans for promising health care institutions, comprising the assessment of potential risks and relevant investment needs (to be broken down by each health care institution and attached as a separate addendum) and other sections.

The following shall be the sources of financing the long-term development plan developed by the hospital district: the state budget, local budgets of territorial communities, non-government investments, sponsorship and charitable contributions, international aid funds, and other sources, unless prohibited by the applicable laws of Ukraine.

You can find the full text of the order HERE