Minister of Family Affairs and Social Services, Mr Juha Rehula Nordic Supervisory Conference for Social and Health Care Marina Congress Center, 1.10.2015 at 9.20 am Subject to changes It is my pleasure to welcome all our guests to the Nordic Supervisory Conference. The theme of our conference is "The world is changing does the supervision change as well?" This conference is bringing together the Nordic supervisory authorities in the field of social affairs and health to discuss the changing needs of supervision. The change of the operating environment in this field is accelerating. These changes also bring challenges to the supervision in the social and health care field. To succeed in this work, we need rapid exchange of information about the supervisory practices in different countries. Too often, we fall short of finding good practices or spreading them for our common benefit. The organiser of the conference, the National Supervisory Authority for Welfare and Health Valvira, is a central office under
2 (5) Finland's Ministry of Social Affairs and Health. By means of guidance and supervision, Valvira promotes implementation of legal protection and quality of services in social and health care as well as management of health risks in the living environment and among the population. The field of its activities is extensive and challenging. Finland's Ministry of Social Affairs and Health is moving from supervision that takes place afterwards (ex-post supervision) to proactive, in advance supervision (ex-ante supervision). According to Valvira's recent external evaluation, there has been advancement in this matter. The number of matters involved in the late, ex-post supervision and their growth create a challenge for the realisation of this goal. The aim is to make selfsupervision the primary supervision form for the quality of services. Self-supervision functions as a tool for the development of the client's own activity, and through that the changes can be carried out at a sufficiently early stage. This also enables us to turn the attention to patient or client feedback earlier. In authorities' ex-post supervision, there is always a delay in the response to damage already occurred and to existing grievances.
3 (5) One of the top projects of Juha Sipilä's Government is the development of client-orientation in health care. The operating models of the social and health care services will be changed to better meet the needs of people. Digitalisation will be increased and bureaucracy decreased. These new approaches will support utilisation of people's own resources and strengths. We want to develop client-orientation also as the basis for supervision. The patient, the client and those close to him or her are to be brought amidst the service processes. In this way, they also will participate in assuring the safety and quality of care. The task of the professionals is to support that. Clientorientation also promotes patient safety. Also the international focus has been on patient safety and its development, and this is featured in the programme of this conference as well. Among the important points in patient and client safety are good information flow as well as digitalisation and standardisation of documentation. These are of great importance as the patient or client is transferred from one care or service location to another.
4 (5) Finland's social and health care system needs urgent reforms. As the Minister of Family Affairs and Social Services it is my responsibility to see through the implementation of the social and health care reform. The responsibility for organising public social and health care services in Finland will be aggregated to autonomous regions larger than municipalities. The social and health care services are to be integrated, at all levels, to clientoriented entities. Strengthening of basic services forms the core of the reform. Another aim of the reform is to improve costefficiency. With fewer resources at our disposal, we need to produce more of better-quality social and health care services. The social welfare and health care reform will be one of the most important structural reforms during this Government's term of office. The intention is to put the act on the arrangement of social and health care services in effect in July 2017. Consequently, the responsibility for the arrangements would be transferred to the autonomous regions from the beginning of 2019. The schedule is really tight, but the preparations are rapidly advancing. The structural changes in social and health care also will increase the need to develop the ways and forms of supervision.
5 (5) My hope is that you will, today, be able to start sowing the seeds for this work. I wish, to all of You, successful conference days in Helsinki!