The Norwegian Ministry of Heath has established the Norwegian Council for Quality Improvement and Priority Setting in Health Care for several purposes. First and foremost, the Council shall secure a comprehensive national approach to the work on quality and prioritisation.
The Council’s work will also help to clarify roles and responsibilities of those responsible for this work, as well as
improve interaction between the different levels in the health services, improving transparency and coordination.
The Council will help coordinate efforts on important topics where there is a need to discuss across the different positions
of responsibility. They will not have the mandate to issue instructions, but to create transparency and legitimacy around
difficult quality and prioritisation issues.
Stakeholders can discuss and deal with key issues associated with quality and prioritisation together through their collective participation in the Council. With the National Health Plan for Norway as their starting point, they will initiate professional analyses when necessary and assess the various aspects of complex issues. Assessments of patient benefit, cost-effectiveness and total costs will provide an important foundation for the Council’s evaluations.
The Council will handle complex and demanding issues, and their assessments will be based upon the best available evidence. In addition, dilemmas and elements of uncertainty also have to be highlighted for every each case. The Council’s members will independently take initiatives they believe are necessary vis-à-vis follow-up, based on their positions of responsibility across the health services.
For specific information about the National Health Plan, see the enclosed short version in English. For more information on the council, see a copy of a poster presented at the 2008 HTAi conference.
For questions contact post@kvalitetogprioritering.no
