Supervision of healthcare in Finland

The Finnish Supervisory Agency guides and supervises the operations of healthcare professionals and healthcare units in both the public and the private sector. The Agency’s tasks are to

• maintain the register of healthcare professionals and the service provider register Soteri
• handle social and healthcare complaints
• monitor fulfilment of time limits under the care guarantee.

The Finnish Supervisory Agency grants the following permits:

• rights to practice for healthcare professionals
• permits for the provision of private healthcare services
• permits for termination of pregnancy and sterilisation in certain cases.

In addition, the Agency deals with complaints and advises clients if they consider that there are serious deficiencies in the services or in their quality.

Healthcare service providers must supervise their own operations

Healthcare service providers have the primary responsibility for supervising their own operations. Employers must supervise, for example, employees, facilities and equipment. Wellbeing services counties and private service providers producing services through more than one service unit must draw up a self-monitoring program for the tasks and services under their responsibility.

The operations of public healthcare are also supervised by the audit committees of the wellbeing services counties. Their task is to assess the fulfilment of the economic and operational objectives of the wellbeing services counties.

Private healthcare companies must have a licence for their operations

Private healthcare companies must have a licence for their operations. The permit is granted by the Finnish Supervisory Agency.

The private service provider must have a manager approved by the licensing authority, who is responsible for health services and for ensuring that the operations meet the requirements pursuant to law.

Fimea supervises the pharmaceutical sector

The Finnish Medicines Agency Fimea regulates medicines, medical devices, blood and tissue products and biobanks and develops the pharmaceutical sector in Finland. In addition, the agency’s tasks include licensing and regulatory duties, research and development and producing and providing information on medicines. Among its other duties, Fimea grants licences to pharmacies and monitors adverse effects of medicines.