Health System Catalunya

 CatSalut, the public body that covers your health    
 
CatSalut is the abbreviation we use to refer to the Catalan Health Service. 
 
     
CatSalut is a key part of the Catalan health system, as it guarantees complete, quality health care for everyone. Turn to the section entitled What is CatSalut? for more information on our brief for guaranteeing public health care. 

We will show your our organisation, both on health service and territorial levels, with further information available in the section called Health care regions.

We use different forms of management. We provide access to the public companies and consortiums we work with, and discuss their aims and main features.

Our service providers are made up of the best professionals and health services and they are always at your service.      
      
 CatSalut is the public health care provider in Catalonia.
 
CatSalut is a registered company of the Department of Health and Social Security of the Generalitat de Catalunya, Catalonia's regional government. Its brief is to guarantee quality health care to all the citizens of Catalonia. 
  
atSalut, the Catalan Health Service, is the public body responsible for guaranteeing the provision of public cover health services for all the citizens of Catalonia.
 
As the public health care provider for Catalonia, CatSalut has the following basic objectives:
 
· To put citizens at the centre of health management and care.
· To guarantee quality health care.
· To ensure the sustainability of the health care system.
 
Accessibility, participation, direct attention, co-responsibility in health issues, information and communication, preventive medicine and studies on future demand trends are basic aspects in the active management of Catalonia's health requirements.
 
CatSalut has the brief of guaranteeing quality health care to all the citizens of Catalonia by ensuring their health needs are adequately met.
  
The Catalan health system is a publicly-funded system with comprehensive coverage and which all the citizens of Catalonia are able to access. The system has an organisation responsible for ensuring the public is   covered: CatSalut. Its insurer function is in keeping with the trend of most European health models.
  
What does CatSalut do?
 
CatSalut plans, purchases and assesses health services according to the health needs of the population. It works as a guarantor of the health provisions so that health, economic and human resources are at the service of citizens with criteria based on equality, quality and efficiency.
 
CatSalut purchases services from its various service providers through the use of contracts which state the health objectives and the services being bought.
 
CatSalut works with different health service providers, of which the Catalan Health Institute is the main one.   

CatSalut plans and acts as a guarantor of health care through the service purchase contracts it makes with its providers.
 
The best professionals and health services at the service of those we cover, ie, the citizens of Catalonia.
  
Below we will introduce our service providers, the organisations that provide the care that CatSalut's clients require. We have classified our service providers according to the type of service they provide: they can be organisations  that supply primary health care services or specialised and other services. They have been classified by health region within each section.

Providers of primary health care services
Primary health care is citizens' first level of access to the health care system. This type of care mainly refers to the primary health care centres (CAP), or municipal surgeries in smaller towns.

Organisations that provide specialised and other services
Specialist health care is citizens' second level of access to the health care system. It includes hospital admissions, social health, psychiatric and mental health care, drug dependency and pharmaceutical care.

"We are going to establish a sanitary model (Catalan Health System) that integrates and prioritizes the public health (including work and environmental health), the sanitary attention, the health services and the social services of dependence attention. A new model adapted to the needs of everybody: citizens, professionals, managers, politicians, all. Marina Geli". Health Minister.
 
Our health care model was established in 1990 under the LOSC (the Health Care Organisation in Catalonia Act), which created the Catalan Health Service and consolidated a mixed health system that belonged to Catalonia and extended the model to all the areas of health care products and health services.
 
It was a mixed health care model that integrated in a single network the public use of all health resources, regardless of whether they were publicly owned, and which brought together a tradition of organisations (health care funds, foundations, consortiums, Church-run centres) historically devoted to health care.
  
This integration model was initiated with the public hospital network (PHN). The model was then extended from the PHN to other lines (primary, social health, mental health) and other health services (emergencies, health transport).

CatSalut is born, the fundamental axis of the Catalan Health Care.

CatSalut, the Catalan Health Service, was establish in January 1991 as the Official entity to plan, assess and purchase Health Services.
 
At present, CatSalut is the guarantor of Public Health Services. The Central Government Health Department is responsible for planning and evaluating as well as developing the project of Health Care Decentralisation, which has allowed the town councils to be incorporated in Local Health Management.

CatSalut purchases and evaluates the Health Care depending on the population necessities. In doing so it assumes, on one hand, the responsibility of the supply and demand and on the other hand, the communication with the population and their participation.