Finland has scope to improve health sector

Although Finland has a high level of preparedness for large-scale health threats, such as influenza pandemic and antimicrobial resistance, it also has a scope for making improvements in the sector, said an international group of experts on Friday.

The expert group submitted its development proposals to Social Affairs and Health Minister Pirkko Mattila in Helsinki on Friday.

The group in its evaluation commended Finland’s horizontal, broad-based collaboration between the authorities. Finland also has well-functioning legislation and practices.

For example, the requirements under the International Health Regulations (IHR) have been fully integrated into the national regulations in all key sectors. Comprehensive security in Finland is at a high level.

In their evaluation, the external experts drew attention to the challenges created by the forthcoming health, social services, and regional government reform as well as to the problem of how to get more done with limited human resources: getting operators outside the central government, such as the scientific community, involved in health security efforts.

In April the group will submit a comprehensive report with concrete recommendations for measures to develop health security in Finland. The Finnish authorities will then use these recommendations to review the existing plans together and revise them to better safeguard health for humans, animals and the environment.

Experts from World Health Organization (WHO) and other international agencies were commissioned by the Finnish Security Committee to conduct an exceptionally extensive evaluation of Finland’s abilities to respond to different kinds of cross-border threats to the health of humans and animals and the environment.

The work was carried out in late March.