Some Thoughts on the Main European Models of the Municipal Health Services

Abstract

Generally the settlement and intermediate level municipalities play an important role in providing health care. Therefore the local communities are responsible for organizing of the majority of the public health services in decentralized model, where the settlement level self-governments organize the basic (primary) health services and the intermediate level local governments the outpatient and inpatient cares. Decentralized model is typical but not general in Europe: the central governments are widely responsible for the provision of the health services in several countries. In the centralized model the local governments are not – or just in small scale (health planning and basic services) – responsible for the health services.