Hospital.Help

Berlin Psychiatric facilities in Germany have too few staff: more than half were unable to meet the minimum staffing requirements set by the Federal Joint Committee (G-BA) in the fourth quarter of 2023. This is evident from the quarterly report of the Institute for Quality Assurance and Transparency in Health Care (IQTIG).

The figures refer to the period from the beginning of October 2023 to the end of December 2023. According to them, 387 of 755 adult psychiatric facilities (51 percent) and 165 of 296 child and adolescent psychiatric facilities (56 percent) were unable to meet the minimum requirements.

Treatment with too few staff endangers patient safety and delays the recovery of severely mentally ill people, said Doris Pfeiffer, CEO of the National Association of Statutory Health Insurance Funds, to the Editorial Network Germany (RNDOne problem is that outpatient care in hospitals has not yet been fully exploited, says Pfeiffer.

According to figures from the National Association of Statutory Health Insurance Funds, the number of hospital beds in German psychiatric institutions has risen steadily in recent years. Most recently, it was 130 beds per 100,000 inhabitants. On average across Europe, however, the number of beds fell from 110 to 73 per 100,000 inhabitants between 1993 and 2021, it said.

As an alternative to the personnel-intensive inpatient care, which according to the health insurance companies is still very common in Germany, outpatient treatment in a day clinic could also be an option for many patients.

The minimum requirements that the G-BA has prescribed since January 1, 2020 for the staffing of psychiatric facilities refer to minimum time requirements for individual professional groups in the facility.

These are determined by the number of patients in the various treatment areas. In order to meet the minimum requirements, a specified level of implementation must be achieved, which in turn is calculated from the actual staffing levels and the minimum requirements. © nfs/aerzteblatt.de