General Practitioners Association supports competency upgrade for nursing staff – under conditions

Berlin. The planned competency upgrade for the nursing profession in Germany remains controversial. The basic principle is: "Nursing must be allowed to do more. Otherwise, it will be difficult to ensure long-term care," said Dr. Markus Beier, co-federal chairman of the Association of General Practitioners, to the Ärzte Zeitung.

What is crucial, however, is "that new parallel structures are not created – as has so often been the case in the past – but that nurses can contribute their additional skills within the existing structures," says Beier. "For outpatient care, this means in concrete terms that nurses must always be connected to a practice team."

Largely old design

The reason for these statements is that the Federal Ministry of Health has brought the Nursing Competence Act back into the parliamentary process and sent a new draft bill – which is available to Ärzte Zeitung – to the associations for their comments.

“The draft that has now been made public and the old draft of the traffic light government are essentially identical, so our position has not changed,” commented Beier.

The new coalition between the CDU/CSU and SPD unfortunately failed to address deficiencies in the old draft. These include, for example, "the fact that the qualifications required to take on certain tasks should have been more clearly regulated," said the association's head.

“MFAs are completely ignored”

Beier described the complete disregard of medical assistants (MFAs) as a "legislative failure." He argued that "more foresight" is needed here. MFAs, who are increasingly training to become, for example, VERAHs or primary care managers, are indispensable for providing care close to home .

The draft nursing competence law provides for nurses to be able to provide more care services independently – this should apply to the care of diabetic patients and dementia patients as well as wound management.

Care can do more than it is allowed to

Former Federal Health Minister Karl Lauterbach (SPD) justified the proposed legislation last year by arguing that professional nursing could do more than it was allowed to. This deterred many young people from entering the profession.

The President of the German Nursing Council, Christine Vogler, stated that nurses must finally be empowered to “carry out diagnostic and therapeutic measures independently within the scope of their qualifications.”

Legal responsibilities and decision-making scope, as well as the possibility of independent billing for corresponding services, must be clearly regulated by the legislature, said the Council President. (hom)