Beyond the miracle of emergency. Toward Phase 2 of the NHS with some reflections

Among the critical issues that have emerged significantly in recent weeks, the crisis in the procurement of antiCovid sanitary material is of great importance, characterized by delays, lack of supplies, prices out of control, difficulties in finding uniform material throughout the national territory. In our opinion, these “inconveniences” are evidence of a lack of “governance capacity” which characterizes the purchasing processes of medical material as a whole and which also characterized the model chosen to meet the need for supplies pending the pandemic. Phase 2 of the health system, and above all of the procurement chain, requires first of all to reflect on the new political agenda of the health system, restoring the correct order of priorities: • health protection, as well as health education policies, represent the essential conditions for long-term economic and social sustainability; • the health policy choices must take into account the consequences in terms of sustainability of the supply markets, the presence of local suppliers, the implications of any opportunistic behavior of private operators; • institutional collaboration, and not the opposition, between multiple levels of government, between citizens and institutions, between political forces, is fundamental for overcoming emergency situations and for reinventing systems for responding to complex and often unpredictable needs. With specific reference to procurement, supply chains and their complexity must be revisited, paying greater attention to factors such as (a) location of key suppliers, (b) reliability of suppliers (e.g. vendor rating), (c) availability of sources alternative qualified procurement, (d) ability of suppliers to operate during an emergency even for long periods.