The regions have made several investments to break their dependence on rental personnel. But the rent bill has only continued to grow.
SVT’s audits have also shown how the system meant that doctors who were designated as unsuitable and dangerous to patients could jump on to new workplaces – who have not been informed of the background.
Today, the rental market is a flurry of procurements, where each region can have lots of long and short contracts with different rental companies – which in turn negotiate the assignments with lots of potential rental doctors and nurses.
At the end of 2020, the regions began to work for a change: a common, uniform rental agreement, which would moderate the development of costs, secure controls and improve the working environment.
Criticized withdrawal rule
An initial agreement was in place in the spring of 2022, but was immediately appealed and criticized from several quarters. Rental companies resented tough rules on fines for actors who misbehaved, and the medical union raged against a waiting period rule that said a doctor who had been employed in a region had to wait a year before he could return as a rental doctor.
This summer, the Administrative Court in Gothenburg decided that the regions could not sign any agreements until the case was tried, which lowered the hope that the new agreement could enter into force in the fall.
The regions then chose to start over with a new procurement where the withdrawal periods remained but, among other things, the penalty rules were changed. The hope was that the new agreement would come into effect in March this year, but several rental companies also appealed this case.
“Can’t influence”
And the Administrative Court has now once again stopped the process. In an interim decision, it is stated that for the time being, the regions may not enter into any new agreements based on the procurement, until the validity of the agreement has been tested by the court.
There is thus a great risk that the schedule will be broken once again. The regions’ project manager Stefan Petersson at the Västra Götaland region comments in an email to SVT that “The administrative right has a processing time and we cannot influence it.”
Read more: Your care is therefore dependent on hired staff
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