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Registration and licensing of health professionals
The Office for Registration and Licensing under the Department of Strategic Management has one
administration staff and a part time head of the Registration and Licensing Board managing the
registration and licensing of health professionals.
Options
There may be opportunities to rationalise and amalgamate some of the standard setting, registration
and licensing functions. If not in terms of combining these, then possibly in terms of the back office
support for their data bases and document management. See the comments later on the boards.
Further work needs to be undertaken before formulating firm suggestions.
Inspection services current situation, issues and options
Pharmacy Inspectorate
The Pharmacy Inspectorate is a recently established inspectorate reporting to the Minister. It was
formerly part of the Kosovo Medicines Agency. It has four inspectors, a director and an assistant. Its
responsibilities including inspecting licensed facilities and professional staff, checking warehouse
licenses, examining import documents, inspecting expiry dates on drugs, and labelling.
As noted earlier, it is unclear why the Pharmacy Inspectorate was recently separated from the
Kosovo Medicines Agency and why it reports directly to the Minister and without further information
on what problems these changes are addressing, we are not in a position to comment.
Health Inspectorate
The Health Inspectorate is organised into three sections: one for inspection; one for implementing
law; and one for information. Staff members work across these areas as they are small in number
(five inspectors and one director). The Inspectorate inspects public and private health institutions
(around 1400 of these but note that this number differs from the number quoted by the licensing
staff). The scope of the Health Inspectorate’s roles under the law is very large. It includes
monitoring health regulations, providing technical and professional advice, promoting best medical
practices and supporting institutions to interpret legal norms and sub legal acts as well as other roles
(see Appendix D).
The Inspectorate is currently working in line with five priorities: gynaecology and obstetrics as it is in
MOH strategy and is related to improving areas related to the millennium development goals
(MDGS); hospital infections; dentistry; the referral system from primary to secondary services and
from secondary to tertiary services; and medical equipment.
This Inspectorate reports directly to the Minister. As noted with regard to the Pharmacy
Inspectorate, we would need further information on what problems this reporting line is solving
before commenting further on this.
With regard to its roles, there is an option for the service departments (secondary and tertiary,
primary health, mental health and public health) to undertake routine monitoring roles including
assessing performance reports from service providers that the MOH has performance contracts or
MOUs with. The Health Inspectorate’s role could be defined more tightly as an inspection role with
access to the necessary powers to do this, rather than the very broad monitoring role it currently has.
Sanitary Inspectorate
Under the recently passed law on food safety, the Sanitary Inspectorate is expected to move to a
new Food Safety Agency reporting to the Office of the Prime Minister.
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