SPD on health and care

The SPD wants an investment program to modernize and digitalize hospitals. A rural doctor quota and regional health centers are meant to improve care outside the cities.

The SPD wants to put a lot of money into hospitals. They should become more modern and more digital. There should be more doctors in rural areas. A rural doctor quota should help with that. New health centers should also open in the regions.

An investment drive for the state's hospitals is planned. A rural doctor quota is to be introduced to strengthen medical care across the state. Regional health centers are to be set up as well. The SPD says where people live should not decide how good their treatment is.

The SPD wants better working conditions in nursing and more staff in elder care and hospital nursing. Home care and family caregivers are also to receive support.

The SPD wants to make care work better. There should be more care workers. This applies to elder care and to nursing in hospitals. People who care for relatives at home should also get help.

The program justifies the demand with the COVID-19 pandemic. In the SPD's view, the health system would almost have collapsed without the commitment of care workers. Besides more staff and better conditions, the party explicitly includes home care and help for family caregivers.

The SPD wants to abolish school fees in the remaining training programs for social and health professions, such as special-needs care. This is meant to address the shortage of skilled workers in social professions and nursing care.

Social professions lack many skilled workers. For some training programs, young people have to pay school fees. The SPD wants to end these fees. More trainees at schools should also get paid during their training.

Besides special-needs care (Heilerziehungspflege), fees are also to end for remedial education, dietetic assistants, orthoptists, pharmaceutical technical assistants, and for massage therapists and medical bath attendants. Pay during full-time school-based training is to be expanded and offered across the state. The SPD wants to coordinate this with federal action as set out in the federal coalition agreement. Overall, training in social professions and nursing care is to be strengthened.

The SPD sees health as part of public services, not as a commodity. It wants to end the growing focus on economic interests and return facilities to municipal ownership where possible.

The SPD says health is not a product for sale. Hospitals should not mainly be about making money. Cities and counties should run more hospitals themselves again. The state and federal government should help.

According to the platform, the economic interests of players in the health system should not be the yardstick; the concerns of patients should be. The return to municipal ownership is to be started as far as possible. The state and the federal government are to support this step.

The SPD wants to carry out the hospital reform started with the new state hospital act. Basic care close to home is to remain available everywhere, while highly specialized services are to be concentrated at suitable hospitals. Investment funds are to rise significantly.

The SPD wants to reorganize hospitals in Lower Saxony. There should be a hospital nearby everywhere. Only certain hospitals should do difficult treatments. The state should give more money to hospitals.

The platform considers structural change necessary because staff are scarce. Hospital planning is to look ahead and follow the actual needs of the regions, and a new care structure is to define clear responsibilities for service areas. Investment funds are to rise substantially over the long term and come from the new Niedersachsenfonds (Lower Saxony fund). A statewide investment drive is meant to advance the modernization and digitalization of hospitals. Hospitals are to cooperate more closely with each other, with doctors' practices and with other facilities.

The SPD wants to secure medical care in rural areas with regional health and care centers. Doctors are to be distributed more evenly, and outpatient and inpatient care are to be linked more closely.

Rural areas often lack doctors. The SPD wants to set up new health centers there. They offer help around the clock. Doctors should be spread better across the state. Practices and hospitals should work together more closely.

Regional health centers are to be set up where outpatient care is at risk or a hospital is not possible or economically threatened; they can be run by municipalities. The municipally run regional care centers tested in pilot projects combine family doctor care with other public services and are to grow according to local needs. The platform points to more medical school places and the rural doctor quota and wants to relieve family doctors. The federal government is to revise needs planning to prevent undersupply in rural areas. The state wants to fund cross-sector care models and regional care networks and push for suitable rules at the federal level.

The SPD wants to add more money from the state budget to the special fund for the university hospitals in Hannover and Göttingen in the coming years. The platform puts the investment needs of both hospitals at more than 2.1 billion euros.

The university hospitals in Hannover and Göttingen need renewal. This costs more than 2.1 billion euros. The state has a special pot of money for it. The SPD wants to put more money into this pot.

According to the platform, the special fund received more than one billion euros in a first step, most of which is earmarked for Göttingen. Another 150 million euros was intended for the renovation backlog at other universities. Further state funds are to follow to complete the financing. The SPD also wants to examine whether a fund model could bring in additional money from third parties for the investments.

The SPD wants to reduce the shortage of therapy places and shorten waiting times, especially in rural areas. The state psychiatry act is to be renewed and child and adolescent psychiatry strengthened.

Many people wait a long time for psychotherapy. The SPD wants this to go faster. There should be more places, also in rural areas. Children and young people should get better help.

The platform describes growing undersupply while demand for therapy places is rising. The SPD wants to push at the state and federal levels for easy access to psychotherapy. A new psychiatry act is meant to improve planning, coordination and steering of psychiatric care. Existing gaps in child and adolescent psychiatry are to be closed.

The SPD wants to create joint dispatch centers that handle both the emergency number 112 and the 116 117 line of the on-call medical service. The aim is to direct patients more effectively and make emergency care easier to understand for people seeking help.

The SPD wants shared dispatch centers for emergencies. Calls to 112 and to 116 117 will arrive there. The centers are open day and night. People should get the right help faster.

The platform describes emergency care as sometimes complicated and wants to make it simpler for people seeking help. The new dispatch centers are to be reachable at all times and handle calls to both numbers. As steps already taken, the platform cites the digital system IVENA, which shows available treatment and bed capacity in hospitals. Pilot projects such as community emergency paramedics and telemedicine services are also under way to relieve hospital outpatient units and deploy rescue resources more precisely.

The SPD wants to structurally strengthen the public health offices in Lower Saxony. The additional staff funded through the federal-state pact is to be kept beyond 2026 with federal and state money. The platform says the COVID-19 pandemic showed how necessary this is.

The SPD wants to make public health offices stronger. They should get more staff and keep them. There should be money for this after 2026 too. The offices should also get modern technology.

The basis is the recommendations of an advisory board on the pact for the public health service and a guiding framework from the conference of health ministers. Staffing increases are to continue in all areas and be funded beyond 2026 from federal and state budgets. The SPD wants to advance digital and technical modernization at both levels. The public health service is also to play a larger part in regional and municipal care planning.

The SPD wants to give civil servants in Lower Saxony access to statutory health insurance in the longer term. To that end, it plans to examine the so-called Hamburg model, under which the employer pays a flat-rate allowance.

Civil servants mostly have private health insurance. The SPD wants to open public health insurance to them. It will look at the Hamburg model for this. In that model, the state pays a fixed share of the cost.

The platform describes the opening as a longer-term project. The flat-rate allowance based on the Hamburg example is to be examined. According to the platform, this model is already in use in other German states.

The SPD wants safe, high-quality maternity care close to home across the state. It plans a state action plan of its own and wants to link birth centers and midwives more closely.

The SPD wants good care around birth everywhere in Lower Saxony. The care should be close to home. The state will make its own plan for this. Midwives and birth centers should work together more closely.

The state is to implement the national health goal on birth and launch an action plan for it. In the platform's view, more staff, better working conditions and adjusted financial conditions are needed. Measures that improve cooperation among the professions involved are also to be funded.

The SPD wants to strengthen addiction counseling centers and expand online counseling for people with addictions. The organization Aidshilfe Niedersachsen is to keep receiving support and secure funding.

The SPD wants to strengthen counseling centers for people with addictions. There should be more counseling online. The AIDS support group should keep getting money from the state. Young people should know a lot about AIDS.

The digital counseling services are meant to help reduce the number of treatments broken off and the number of inpatient admissions. On AIDS support, the platform points to about 3,800 people living with HIV/AIDS in the state and 130 new infections in the previous year. The SPD considers education, especially of young people, decisive for prevention.

The SPD wants to promote digital solutions in health care, including the electronic patient record, e-prescriptions and telemedicine. This is meant to relieve staff and give rural regions access to specialized care. Health data is to be usable for research under strict protection rules.

The SPD wants more digital technology in health care. This includes the electronic patient record and e-prescriptions. Doctors should also be able to treat patients by video. This helps people in rural areas. Patient data should be well protected.

Digital projects are to be funded, for example at home care services: electronic care documentation, digital route planning, and remote work and tele-care. Telemedicine networks are to connect practices, regional care centers and smaller hospitals with leading specialist institutions. The platform stresses the special importance of data protection for health data. At the same time, the SPD wants to promote data sharing for research and innovation under strict safeguards. Compared with Baltic and Scandinavian countries, the platform sees untapped potential.

The SPD wants to improve care for seriously ill and dying people and strengthen their self-determination. Hospice and palliative care structures are to keep receiving state funding, and grief support is to be promoted.

The SPD wants to give better help to dying and very sick people. These people should be able to decide about their own lives. Hospices should keep getting money from the state. The SPD also wants to support help for grieving people.

The platform points to statewide outpatient and inpatient services and about 4,000 volunteers in hospice and grief work. It says the protective rules of the COVID-19 pandemic placed a heavy burden on staff, patients and relatives. The structures are therefore to remain funded and be geared more closely to patients' needs.

The SPD calls for a nationwide collective wage agreement for care work that the federal labor minister can declare generally binding. Insurers and municipalities are to fully refinance the agreed wages. The platform justifies this with appreciation and more attractive working conditions.

The SPD wants one wage agreement for all care workers in Germany. A wage agreement sets pay. It should apply to all employers. Insurers and local governments should pay for the wages. Care workers aged 40 and older should get regular health retreats.

The SPD speaks of a universally valid "Tarifvertrag Soziales" (social sector wage agreement) for all care workers; the focus is on collectively agreed pay for skilled staff. Health and long-term care insurers and municipalities are to be required to refinance wage agreements in full. At the federal level, the SPD wants skilled care workers aged 40 and over to be able to take an inpatient preventive health retreat every three to four years, similar to firefighters. Findings from the Konzertierte Aktion Pflege Niedersachsen, launched in 2019, are to be used to improve conditions in home care and care facilities.

The SPD wants to create more short-term care and home care services so that people needing care are well looked after in a facility, at home or within the family. Municipal care support centers are to be strengthened to improve counseling.

The SPD wants to create more care services. This includes care at home. It also includes care for a short time in a facility. Young people who need care should get services too. Advice about care should get better.

The platform refers to the new Lower Saxony care law, which in the SPD's view brings considerable improvements. Younger people in need of care are also to be considered when outpatient and inpatient services are built up. The municipalities' care support centers (Pflegestützpunkte) are to be strengthened together with senior citizens' councils. The reason given is the need for advice in an aging society.