CDU on health and care

The CDU wants to develop Berlin into a world-leading hub for the health economy and medical research. Red tape is to be cut, approvals sped up and more space made available. A Future Health Campus is to be built in central Berlin.

Berlin should become a world city for medicine. The CDU wants less red tape and faster approvals. Companies should get more space. A new health campus should be built in the city center.

State-owned properties and investment incentives are to provide more space for medical practices, research and production. The Buch health campus is to be developed further. Hospitals, especially the Charité, are to become innovation platforms for e-health, data-driven medicine and personalized therapies and work more closely with pharma, biomedicine and medtech firms. Gene and cell therapy are to be promoted. In the CDU's view, the State Office for Health and Social Affairs should become a service-oriented enabler.

The CDU wants state legislation allowing clinical data from all Berlin hospitals to be used for research, innovation and spin-offs under high data protection standards. A uniform hospital information system is to be introduced across all clinics.

Hospitals have a lot of data about patients. The CDU wants to use this data for research. Data protection should stay strong. All hospitals in Berlin should use the same computer system.

The aim is to make the Charité, within the Berlin University Alliance, a leading center for data-driven medicine, personalized therapies and AI-assisted research. The CDU sees health data as a strategic resource for innovation and new business models. The uniform hospital information system (KIS) is to link patient care and research more closely. The CDU wants data protection to be applied in a practical way.

Working with the Kassenärztliche Vereinigung (association of statutory health insurance physicians), the CDU wants to change rules so that family doctors, pediatricians, and midwives set up practice where they are needed. It also plans practice space in new buildings, a central directory of services, and more local prevention.

The CDU wants more doctors close to where people live. Family doctors, children's doctors, and midwives should work where they are missing. New city buildings should have room for practices. A directory should show where doctors are. Pharmacies should offer more health services.

In new buildings by the city-owned housing companies, space for medical practices is to be planned from the start together with the districts and the physicians' association. A central, easy-to-understand directory is to list doctors, midwives, and care home places. Prevention is to become part of everyday life, with more counseling especially in outer districts. Pharmacies and other partners are to be strengthened as low-threshold access points, for example for vaccinations and blood pressure and blood sugar checks.

The CDU wants patients in emergencies to find the right place faster and waiting times in emergency rooms to fall. To this end, walk-in practices at hospitals are to be expanded and emergency services linked digitally.

In an emergency, people should find help faster. They should wait less in emergency rooms. Hospitals should have more urgent-care practices. The phone number 116117 should play a bigger role.

Portalpraxen are on-call doctors' practices located directly at hospitals. The 116117 hotline is to be strengthened as the first point of contact. A qualified phone assessment is to route people seeking help directly to the right level of care.

The CDU wants to implement the hospital reform with a plan developed jointly with all Berlin hospital operators and to invest specifically in infrastructure and equipment. The Charité is to receive adequate investment funding as a center of top-tier medicine.

The CDU wants to carry out the hospital reform. It wants to do this with all Berlin hospitals. The state should pay for buildings and equipment. The Charité is a big university hospital. It should get more money.

Investment is meant to ensure modern care that meets demand. The Charité is to receive funds for infrastructure, digitization, cutting-edge research, and university medical training. Conditions for clinical trials, innovation transfer, and partnerships with research institutions and companies are also to be improved.

In long-term care, the CDU follows the principle of outpatient before inpatient care, so that people needing care can live at home as long as possible. At the same time, telemedicine and digital links between practices, hospitals, and care facilities are to be expanded citywide.

People who need care should live at home for a long time. Districts should offer more advice for this. Doctors should also help by video. Practices, hospitals, and care homes should be connected digitally. Older people should get help nearby.

Counseling and support services in the districts are to be strengthened, and Pflegestützpunkte (care support centers) expanded into central points of contact. Free training for volunteers interested in caregiving is to be better publicized. Video consultations, teleconsultations, and digital therapies are to be available everywhere. For older and less mobile people, neighborhood health hubs in care homes, home-care stations, and similar facilities are to provide access to digital services.

The CDU wants to focus more on mental health, especially among young people, and expand low-threshold support services. Psychotherapy provision is to be based on actual need in order to shorten waiting times.

The CDU wants to help young people with mental health problems. Help should be quick and easy to get. The Soulspace project should open in more places. People should wait less for therapy.

Projects like Soulspace are to open at more locations so that young people in crisis can find help across Berlin. The CDU supports redoing the needs-based planning for psychotherapy according to actual demand. This is meant to remove shortages and significantly reduce waiting times.

The CDU wants to continue, reliably secure, and further develop the Fast-Track City initiative. The goal is to end new HIV infections and AIDS in Berlin.

Fast-Track City is a program against HIV. The CDU wants to keep it going. Its funding should be secure. The goal is that no one gets HIV anymore.

The CDU calls the initiative a success story. It is to be continued, secured over the long term, and further developed. This is meant to put Berlin on the path to ending new HIV infections and AIDS.

The CDU wants to strengthen care in people's own homes and neighborhoods and set up a care emergency hotline available around the clock. The aim is to resolve acute crises in home care early and avoid unnecessary emergency calls.

Many people get care at home. The CDU wants to support this care. There should be an emergency phone line for care. It works day and night. It should bring help fast.

The hotline is to use existing structures, with the long-term care insurance funds sharing the costs. The Berlin home visits program is to be secured permanently. Volunteer neighborhood help is to be coordinated by paid staff, and the relief allowance available from care level 1 is to be made easier to use for it; the CDU wants to cut red tape following other states' examples. More care places, more short-term care and new housing models such as shared care apartments are planned. Heat protection is to become a permanent task of the public health service.

The CDU wants to attract and retain more nursing staff. Foreign qualifications are to be recognized faster, training and degree programs improved, and doctors and nurses freed from administrative work.

Care homes and hospitals need more nurses. The CDU wants to find more people for nursing. Degrees from other countries should count faster. Trainees should get more practice places. Nurses should do less paperwork.

Arrival programs are planned for immigrant professionals, and people returning to nursing are to get training, mentoring and advice. Nursing trainees should find enough placements, and a master's program in nursing is to enable the use of Community Health Nurses. The CDU wants to complete the action alliance on cutting red tape for Berlin hospitals together with insurers, the medical review service and the hospital association. State care regulations are to be reviewed for necessity, and digital interfaces are to simplify documentation.

The CDU wants to create a nursing chamber for Berlin. It is to develop the nursing profession, secure care standards and represent the interests of nurses.

The CDU wants a nursing chamber in Berlin. A chamber is a body that represents a profession. It should make sure care standards are good. It should also speak for nurses.

The chamber is to develop the profile and standards of the nursing profession. It is to represent the interests of nurses. The state is to provide start-up funding in the first years.

The CDU wants Berlin's hospitals to remain operational during disasters, cyberattacks, power outages or in a defense emergency. This includes staff and supply reserves and better IT security.

Hospitals should keep working in a crisis. For example, during a power outage or an attack. They need extra staff and medicine for this. Their computers should be better protected.

Plans include staff reserves, stronger IT security, protection of sensitive hospital areas and larger stocks of medicines and medical equipment. This is to rest on crisis plans, regular drills and reliable funding rules for reserve capacity. The CDU relies on close cooperation with the federal government, the states and the Bundeswehr (German armed forces). It wants to examine whether protected underground care facilities could help.