CDU on health and care

The CDU wants to expand health research at universities and non-university institutes, especially on cancer, lung disease, infections, and transplantation. Cooperation among the northern German states is also to grow.

The CDU wants to strengthen health research. This is mainly about cancer, lung disease, and infections. Researchers in northern Germany should work together more. Artificial intelligence should also help find new treatments.

Building on the Comprehensive Cancer Center Niedersachsen in Hannover and Göttingen, cancer research in the state is to be expanded. Infection research networks, including the COVID-19 research network COFONI, are to be reviewed, developed further, and opened to partners from outside science. In biomedicine, drug research, and medical device manufacturing, the CDU wants to expand networking and the transfer of research into practice. For rehabilitation and occupational medicine, adaptation strategies are to be developed early, drawing on research into long COVID. Artificial intelligence is to be used more in health research with attention to data protection.

The CDU wants doctors' practices to be spread more evenly across Lower Saxony so that rural regions remain well served. It relies on rules for oversupplied areas and on incentives for setting up practice in underserved ones.

Some areas have many doctors, others too few. The CDU wants to change that. Young doctors should get benefits if they move to rural areas. Family doctors should be paid better.

For oversupplied areas, the program considers binding rules on buying up practice licenses and not refilling vacant ones. Together with the Kassenärztliche Vereinigung (association of statutory health insurance physicians), incentives are to be created for young doctors, along with an initiative to promote self-employment. Pay for family doctors is to rise through a reassessment of the uniform fee schedule (EBM). Care assistants in family practices (VERAH) are to be expanded and combined with telemedicine. Foreign professional qualifications are to be recognized quickly while keeping high professional and language standards, and self-governance by doctors and insurers is to take priority.

The CDU wants to keep investing in hospitals and introduce tiers of care to raise quality and secure basic care everywhere. Investment funding is to rise quickly to eight percent of revenue from inpatient services.

The CDU wants to spend more money on hospitals. Hospitals should be sorted into levels. Big centers should treat serious illnesses. Basic care should be available everywhere.

Serious illnesses are to be treated at large specialized and maximum-care centers. The CDU wants to push for a payment reform under which the cost of keeping capacity available is paid regardless of case numbers. Hospital construction is to take pandemics into account, and emergency plans for reserve facilities are to be drawn up. The party calls on the federal government to fund a hygiene investment program in hospitals and care facilities. Rehabilitation clinics are to be strengthened, including for ME/CFS and long COVID, and nursing staff are to spend less time on documentation.

The CDU wants to ensure that emergency, basic and standard care can be reached within half an hour everywhere. To that end, rescue services and care in rural areas are to be expanded.

Everyone should reach medical help within 30 minutes. The CDU wants to make sure of that. Rural areas should get more health centers. Rescue services should become stronger.

The program provides for a funding scheme for health and care centers in rural areas. Community paramedics are to be written into the state rescue services law and deployed statewide. Paramedics and nurses are to get broader powers and be able to work in the on-call medical service as well. Rescue dispatch centers are to get uniform standards and a dedicated career track for their staff, and more rescue helicopters are planned. Emergency workers are to be entitled to continued pay during disasters. From grade 9, there is to be a resuscitation class once a year, and hospice and palliative care are to receive further funding.

The CDU wants to draw up an overall plan for digital health care together with insurers and providers. Telemedicine is to be used across the state, especially in rural areas, because the program sees it as improving care.

The CDU wants more digital technology in health care. Doctors should also be able to treat patients by video. This is called telemedicine. It should help people in rural areas most of all.

The program cites pilot projects in Gifhorn and Delmenhorst as models. The electronic patient record and the e-prescription are to be rolled out everywhere. Doctors' practices and health centers are to get support for going digital, and doctors are to receive training. The Krankenhauszukunftsgesetz (Hospital Future Act) is to be amended so that funding for hospitals' digital equipment is sufficient. Telemedicine hubs at large hospitals are to grow, and the IVENA software is to send emergency data directly from the ambulance to the hospital.

The CDU wants to improve care for mental illness and make sure there are enough psychotherapists. It points out that mental health is becoming more important and that the COVID-19 pandemic leaves its mark.

Many people have mental health problems. The CDU wants enough therapists to be available. Children and young people should get more help. The CDU also wants research on loneliness.

Together with the statutory health insurers, psychosocial services at the workplace are to grow in private companies and in the state administration. The pilot project of community-based psychiatric centers is to be extended statewide. The use of telemedicine in psychotherapy is to be reviewed and expanded where needed. There are also to be more services for children and young people and research on loneliness.

The CDU wants to secure the supply of medicines close to where people live and support pharmacies in this role. The local pharmacy is also to serve as an easily accessible advice point in the health system.

The CDU wants to keep local pharmacies. People should get their medicines close to home. Pharmacies should also give advice and guidance. They should get help with digital technology.

The role of pharmacies in supplying medicines is to be at the center of policy, and hospital pharmacies are to get support as well. Pharmacies are to act as guides who give competent and empathetic advice. They are to receive help with digitalization so that they can play a key part in digital care.

The CDU wants a state initiative to set up midwife coordination centers everywhere, because many expectant parents struggle to find a midwife. Maternity wards with permanently employed midwives are to be available throughout the state.

Many parents find it hard to get a midwife. So the CDU wants midwife centers everywhere. Hospitals should have midwives on staff. Training at universities should keep growing.

So that hospitals can keep midwives on staff, natural births are to be paid better in the flat-rate case payment system (DRG). University-level midwife training is to be developed further according to need. The state is to draw up criteria for adequately funded, quality-assured obstetric care. In rural areas, new advice and care models are to be tested, and medical sensors for prenatal and postnatal care are to become easier to use. The party also wants to solve the insurance problem facing midwives.

The CDU wants gender-specific medicine to receive more attention and wants to fund research on it in Lower Saxony. It bases this on people's individual medical needs.

Women and men can get sick in different ways. Medicine should pay more attention to this. The CDU wants to fund research on it. It also wants better information on illnesses like endometriosis.

Together with other states and through the conference of health ministers, an initiative in the Bundesrat (the chamber of the states) is to push for improvements. Research at sites in Lower Saxony is to receive funding. There is to be more public information about conditions such as endometriosis in order to reduce stigma.

The CDU wants a state program to recruit 5,000 more nursing and care workers within five years and to improve working conditions in care. In the party's view, this is the only way to keep staff, win back those who left and attract new ones.

There are not enough care workers. The CDU wants to find 5,000 new care workers in five years. A care commissioner should lead the program. Care workers should be allowed to decide more on their own.

The program is to be adequately funded and to support the training of teaching and care staff as well as the recruitment of care workers from abroad. A new state care commissioner is to lead it. A further initiative is to win back care workers who left the profession because of working conditions. At the start of the legislative term, the CDU wants to present proposals for giving care workers more responsibilities in their field.

The CDU wants to bring back the one-year training course for care aides to create an easy entry into the profession. Care training is also to be organized as dual training, freed of school fees and promoted more strongly.

The CDU wants to bring back a short training course for care aides. It lasts one year. This should bring more people into care work. No one should pay school fees for the training.

Care aides are to be able to move on to assistant or skilled nurse training at any time. Training for aides, assistants and skilled nurses is to run as dual training in a pilot project, meaning in both workplace and school. The state wants to co-fund the start for three years and secure recognition by the bodies that pay for care. School fees are to be dropped in training for Heilerziehungspflege (care for people with disabilities) and in all health and care professions. Seminars for teachers, employment agencies and job centers and campaigns in schools are to provide information on care careers.

The CDU wants to make nursing training more hands-on and recruit more instructors for nursing schools. To do so, it plans practice labs, additional university places, and new nursing schools.

The CDU wants better training for nurses. Schools should get practice rooms with people who play patients. There should be more university places for nursing. Experienced nurses should find it easier to teach.

Vocational schools with a nursing focus are to receive funding for so-called skills labs, practice rooms with simulated patients, which is also meant to offset the shortage of internship places in rural areas. More continuing education and part-time degree programs for nurses are planned. New legal rules are to let experienced practitioners teach without much red tape. State universities are to get more places and more master's programs in nursing. The CDU wants to fund new nursing schools and approve them with little bureaucracy.

The CDU wants to meet the demand for nursing staff partly through more skilled workers from abroad and career changers. Foreign qualifications are to be recognized more easily, visas granted more readily, and entry barriers lowered.

There are not enough care workers. The CDU wants to bring in more care workers from other countries. Their qualifications should be recognized more easily. People from other jobs should also be able to move into care work more easily.

Recognition of foreign nursing qualifications is to become simpler and uniform across all German states; anyone who passes the exams should be allowed to work in that field. Care assistants from abroad should be hired with A2-level German and take a language course alongside their job. Easier visas are planned for people from non-EU countries, for example those with three years of nursing experience. A ten-year transitional rule is to let long-serving care staff complete the training even without a school-leaving certificate.

The CDU wants to introduce a Landespflegegeld (state care allowance) as a subsidy so that people needing care are not financially overwhelmed. It also wants long-term care insurance reformed at the federal level and investment funding restored for nursing homes.

Care costs a lot of money. The CDU wants the state to pay a care allowance. This is extra money for people who need care. Nursing homes should also get state money again. This should lower the costs for residents.

The program justifies the subsidy by pointing to many older people's fear of being unable to afford care. At the federal level, the CDU wants to push for a reform of long-term care insurance that prevents poverty caused by care needs and includes private provision. The state's investment funding is to be restructured to cover nursing homes again. This is meant to reduce residents' own contributions, which the program says many cannot afford.

The CDU wants people needing care to be able to live at home longer and plans to link outpatient, day-care, and residential services more closely. Family caregivers are to get relief and new housing models are to be enabled. The party rejects a rigid quota of fully qualified staff.

Many people want to be cared for at home. The CDU wants to make this easier. There should be community nurses. These are nurses who visit people in their town. Family members who give care should get more help, such as day care. There should also be new kinds of shared housing for care.

Telemedicine and community nurses are planned as easy-access services. Outpatient, day-care, and full residential care are to be offered with shared staff in one facility; legal foundations for models such as "StAmbulant" are to be created. Day, night, and short-term care are meant to relieve relatives, and neighborhood help and mixed-age care flat shares are to be supported. The CDU wants to protect live-in helpers in private homes, often from Eastern Europe, from exploitation. Together with the federal government, staffing rules are to be changed so that assistants count more and the quota follows actual care needs.

The CDU wants to streamline administrative procedures in the care sector and consolidate authorities. At the same time, digitalization is meant to simplify work processes and documentation.

Care work comes with many rules and a lot of paperwork. The CDU wants to reduce this. Government offices should work together better. Computers and digital tools should make the work easier.

Licensing and supervisory authorities are to be merged and work from a single inspection checklist. A separate state law is to govern approval of residential facilities, and arbitration proceedings are to be finished within three months. The plan includes care hubs that develop innovations with universities and providers and serve local care services as a digital help desk, plus a competence center for digitalization in the social sector. Digital skills are to get more weight in training, and digital infrastructure is to count as a standard benefit. Smart home technology is to be funded so that care can stay at home longer.

The CDU rejects a nursing chamber with compulsory membership and favors voluntary representation of interests. Unions, workplace representatives, and professional associations are to be strengthened, and a collective agreement for the care sector is to be pursued again.

Care workers should be able to speak up for their interests. The CDU does not want to force them to join a chamber. It wants to strengthen unions and associations. It also wants a collective agreement for care work. A collective agreement sets pay and working conditions for many workers.

In the program's view, a nursing chamber with mandatory membership for employed care workers was unworkable from the start. Instead, unions and workplace representation in elder care and hospital nursing are to be strengthened. Professional and welfare associations are to be consulted on political decisions, and the nursing professions are to get broad participation rights. Image campaigns are meant to attract more young people to the profession. The CDU wants to revive the initiative for a "Tarifvertrag Pflege" (collective agreement for care) and back it with further steps.

The CDU opposes any legalization of drugs except for medical purposes. At the same time, it wants to expand prevention, counseling, and treatment in addiction services with additional funding.

The CDU does not want to allow drugs. The only exception is for medical use. The party wants to inform people more about the dangers of addiction. Schools should talk about addiction earlier. There should be more money for helping people with addiction.

The program describes addiction as a serious chronic illness and drug policy as a task for society as a whole. Campaigns are to inform people about the risks of alcohol, media use, gambling, and drugs. A focus is on children and teenagers; prevention is to appear earlier in the curricula of secondary schools. More money is planned for early detection, counseling, treatment, and self-help, and outpatient rehabilitation for people with addiction is to grow.