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EACEA National Policies Platform
Poland

Poland

7. Health and Well-Being

7.7 Making health facilities more youth friendly

Last update: 28 November 2023

It is impossible to indicate initiatives aimed at improving access to health care establishments in the case of a specific age group. The country operates the Accreditation Programme. Hospitals (Program Akredytacji. Szpitale). It contains a set of standards prepared in 2009 by the Centre for Monitoring Health Care Quality. But firstly, they refer to general friendliness and attention given to the standards of service and patients’ access to hospitals. Secondly, they are not compulsory. There is also the Accreditation Programme. Primary Health Care. A set of standards (Program akredytacji. Podstawowa Opieka Zdrowotna. Zestaw standardów). It provides the rules of conduct towards all patients, such as respect for basic rights and needs, respect for dignity - in particular in cases of people with physical or mental disabilities, regardless of their health condition, convictions and economic situation, ensuring privacy, freedom from embarrassment, secrecy, providing intelligible information about health, participation in making decisions about planned medical treatment. Some of those rules may be particularly important to young patients.

Improved access to health services was one of the tasks listed in the 2020 National Programme of Combating Poverty and Social Exclusion. The Programme was intended to improve the effectiveness of the health care system in all areas of health care (primary, outpatients, inpatients and addiction treatment) as well as to implement integrated health care and disease management.

Patient rights, while generally referring to adult persons, in many cases give the right to information, decisions and consent to persons aged 16 to 18.