Will the government's measures improve health services?
The government has presented a white paper and is introducing 13 measures to strengthen the regular GP scheme and the emergency medical chain outside hospitals. The ambition is to make the services more sustainable in the face of more patients with complex needs.
April 10, 2025
Minister of Health Jan Christian Vestre, photo: Regjeringen.no
Renew, reinforce, improve
Minister of Health and Care Services Jan Christian Vestre yesterday presented the white paper "Renew, reinforce, improve. The future of general practitioner services and emergency medical services outside hospitals".
In the health minister's introduction it says: "We must ensure that the public general practitioner service is sustainable, also for a future with fewer professionals per patient and more people with complex needs."
The government's proposed measures
To reach the goals of a future-oriented general practitioner service and emergency medical chain, the government proposes 13 main steps:
A new funding model for the regular GP scheme
Interdisciplinary GP offices
Consultation on a modernised regular GP regulation
Requirements for the use and trialling of new digital solutions; appointment booking and digital consultations
Develop and introduce more digital access for general practitioners to medical record documents from hospitals, test results and radiology
Reinforce cooperation between the health sector and the labour and welfare sector
Draw up a new strategy for health literacy in the population
Inhabitants are to be given increased access to digital tools such as Helsenorge
A trial scheme giving public health nurses the right to refer patients to child and adolescent psychiatric outpatient clinics
Lower some competence requirements for doctors, and raise the age limit for doctors
Strengthen patient safety and quality by developing tools for the municipalities
Strengthen local emergency preparedness through the use of technology and personnel in new ways
Change the funding model for the out-of-hours emergency service
As the health minister writes in the introduction, the goal is that:
"Professionals in the future will treat more patients with more complex needs."
In relation to this statement, it is worth mentioning that more and more people live longer with illness, and the individual's need for health care will increase in the future.
Unlikely to increase productivity in the health sector
It is difficult to see that any of the points mentioned will directly contribute to achieving the health minister's goal of higher productivity in the sector. First and foremost because the regular GP and out-of-hours emergency schemes are already lagging behind. There is a great deal of ground to make up before the regular GP scheme functions in such a way that one can expect more patients to be treated.
That the National Insurance Scheme will pay for services performed by nurses may perhaps improve finances, but not productivity per health worker. Points on the list that make the bureaucracy simpler do not affect the professionals' ability to treat more patients, but perhaps recruitment and municipal finances.
Furthermore, it is very resource-intensive, both for local administration and finances, to implement the digital solutions mentioned. It will take time before these measures can have an effect on the number of patients that can be treated per professional — if it is possible at all when each individual's need for health services is increasing.
There is also reason to ask why the municipalities themselves should have to map, plan, draw up procedures, administer, operate and implement digital solutions. The framework, or the standard as it is also called, ought to be ready from the state before the municipalities are required to introduce these resource-intensive tasks. Only then will the financial effect of digital solutions be able to contribute to better municipal finances. Development moves fast; new digital solutions are now being rolled out before the municipalities have time to reap the gains from the previous one.
The government's measures appear to place a heavy burden on health workers, who constantly have to learn new technology while at the same time being expected to improve productivity.
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