New assessment shows Bulgaria’s commitment towards tackling noncommunicable diseases
WHO has released the report “Better noncommunicable diseases outcomes: challenges and opportunities for health systems. Country assessment – Bulgaria (2020)”, providing an analysis of Bulgaria’s health systems response to noncommunicable diseases (NCDs) and proposing practical recommendations to address the current challenges faced by the country.
Bulgaria has adopted a comprehensive policy framework, including the National Development Programme Bulgaria 2030 and the National Health Strategy, as part of its strategy towards the NCDs agenda.
Challenges ahead
The report also highlights areas which remain challenging, such as:
- funding NCDs prevention, which is still relatively under-resourced;
- the need for strengthening the role of the general practitioner in the prevention and management of NCDs;
- high out-of-pocket payments, especially for NCD medicines; and
- the high rate of avoidable hospitalizations.
Multisectoral action
The report also notes that Bulgaria has taken steps to mobilize multisectoral action across different government departments and policy domains. It describes how the Bulgarian health system carries out NCDs prevention, control, management and surveillance.
The document provides policy recommendations to integrate the health and social sectors, strengthen coordination among providers and reduce the length of hospitalizations through planned discharge.
Innovations
The report also describes the innovations and best practices that Bulgaria has implemented to improve the management and quality of care. Since 2015, the country has been involved in international stroke care quality improvement initiatives with a growing number of stroke physicians participating in a project organized by the European Stroke Organisation.
Country assessments for informed policy
The report is part of a series taking stock of the response of health systems in countries in the WHO European Region to NCDs.
This latest report reviews the unique opportunities and challenges of Bulgaria’s health system for scaling up core services for the prevention, early diagnosis and management of NCDs and provides strategic recommendations for the health system to accelerate progress in tackling NCDs.
“The assessment of the Bulgarian health care system provides fundamental knowledge regarding epidemiology and service readiness to answer NCD challenges at the national level,” says Prof. Plamen Dimitrov, Deputy Director of the National Center of Public Health and Analyses and co-author of the report. “The Sustainable Development Goal 3.4, to reduce premature mortality from NCDs by one-third, is an ambitious target. Therefore the existing political commitment will provide the necessary basis to move forward with NCD prevention and management.”
The assessment was prepared in partnership with the Bulgarian Government, the Ministry of Health and the National Center of Public Health and Analyses.
