SPD on health and care

The SPD aims for a digital health system with telemedicine, connected providers, and electronic health records. This is meant to relieve doctors and nurses, improve care, and avoid duplicate examinations.

The SPD wants more digital tools in medicine. Doctors should also be able to advise by video. Practices and hospitals should share data easily. Home technology should make care at home easier.

Telemedical diagnosis and counseling are to be promoted in view of the aging population. Smart home applications are to make home care easier. Practices, hospitals, emergency services, labs, and health authorities are to exchange data without technical breaks. Electronic health records are to combine findings, prescriptions, and lab results from office-based doctors.

The SPD wants to gain 4,000 additional care workers by the end of the decade to end the staff shortage. A concerted action on care, better pay, more training places and a new care plan are meant to contribute.

Saarland lacks many care workers. The SPD wants 4,000 more of them by 2030. Care workers should be paid better. There should be more places for training and for day care for people who need help.

According to the program, about 2,000 care workers are currently missing, and 4,000 more will be needed by 2030. In a Konzertierte Aktion Pflege (concerted action on care) led by the state, binding goals, responsibilities and ongoing monitoring are to be set. Staff in elder care and in especially demanding areas are to earn more, and the SPD wants to press the federal government for minimum staffing levels. Incentives are to win back people returning to the profession or to full-time work, alongside more training and retraining places. Because Saarland has the fewest home care services in Germany, according to the program, a new care plan, more day care places and secured care support centers are planned.

The SPD wants to give nursing staff more room to act on their own and relieve them of paperwork. It also wants to make it easier to bring in foreign nurses and to recognize their qualifications.

The SPD wants to strengthen nursing as a job. Nurses should be able to decide more on their own. They should have less paperwork. Nurses from other countries should find it easier to work in Saarland.

The program calls for changing delegation rules, meaning the rules on which tasks nurses may carry out. Documentation duties are to be reduced. Workplace health programs, supervision and further training are to be expanded to make staff more resilient. Training and retraining should be offered part-time more often, in cooperation with the Federal Employment Agency. The SPD wants simpler recognition for nurses from abroad.

The SPD wants to push in the Bundesrat for a solidarity-based long-term care insurance in which people's own contributions are capped from the start of their need for care. In Saarland, more short-term care places and more outpatient services are to be created.

Care costs people a lot of money. The SPD wants to limit these costs. The limit should apply from the first month. Saarland should get more places for short-term care.

The program holds that health is a human right and not a commodity, so the need for care should be better covered by society. More short-term care places are planned in services for older people and people with disabilities. Shortages in outpatient and day care for older people are to be resolved, and household help and support services expanded. Payment rules in hospital and elder care should remove financial incentives to cut back on nursing.

The SPD wants the state to take an active role in hospital planning again and to keep Saarland free of private hospital operators. The state should be able to take stakes in hospital providers, and the shortage of doctors and therapists in rural areas is to be countered.

The SPD does not want private companies to run hospitals. The state should plan hospitals better. The state can also take a share in hospital providers. Rural areas should have enough doctors.

Under the program, the state may take stakes in providers to secure inpatient care and develop the hospital landscape. The role of Saarland University Medical Center in hospital care is to grow. The SPD wants to tackle the shortage of general practitioners, specialists and therapists in rural regions. Cross-border cooperation is to continue beyond the pandemic. The program describes the health sector, with more than 90,000 employees, as a pillar of the state's economy.

The SPD wants to reorganize the public health service in local health offices and at state level. It plans more staff, new responsibilities, more prevention and a state institute modeled on the Robert Koch Institute.

The SPD wants to improve the public health offices. More people should work there. The offices should do more to prevent illness. A new health institute is to be set up in Homburg.

The reform covers both local health offices and state-level bodies. The program names three elements: additional staff, new responsibilities and stronger prevention. A Saarland institution that the program compares to the Robert Koch Institute (Germany's federal public health institute) is to be set up at the university hospital in Homburg.

The SPD wants to expand psychotherapy services in Saarland because, according to the program, people wait months for a place. Addiction prevention and help for people with addictions are also to be strengthened.

Many people wait a long time for therapy. The SPD wants to create more therapy places. It also wants to help people with addictions better. Homeless people should get help more easily too.

The program justifies the expansion by saying employees in Saarland have the highest rate of sick leave for mental illness in Germany. In addiction support, the SPD wants to strengthen outreach social work and improve access to immediate therapy. Special protective services are planned for women with addictions. Easy-to-reach help for homeless people is to be expanded.

The SPD wants to enable older people to stay in their own homes by introducing housing advice, support for home conversions and outreach counseling. Senior citizens' offices, a legally guaranteed say for seniors' councils and an updated dementia strategy are also planned.

Many people want to stay at home when they are old. The SPD wants to help with changes to the home. Older people should get advice. People with dementia should also get more help. Dementia is an illness that makes people forget many things.

An "independence bonus" is to top up the existing KfW (state development bank) program for age-appropriate conversions. With a program called "Gemeindeschwester plus" (community nurse plus), the SPD wants to visit and advise older people at home on care, loneliness and everyday help, linked to local care support centers. A new state plan for seniors, a new state care plan and independent care advisers are planned. Senior citizens' offices and local networks are meant to counter loneliness. On dementia, which the program says affects 23,600 people in Saarland, the government is to present a regular report and a state plan and strengthen the specialist dementia office.