French General Directorate for Health sets priorities for 2017-2019

The French General Directorate for Health (DGS) has published its Strategic Project for 2017-2019. The project aims to adapt the DGS’s mission in health protection and promotion to the legislative measures anticipated by the Law on the Modernisation of the Health System. It also focusses on certain challenges, namely:

• Investing in health promotion and prevention with the stakeholders concerned.

• Guaranteeing the safety and quality of health practices and care.

• Improving the management of health, environmental and food related risks.

The challenges are supported by specific orientations, priority actions and transversal actions/strategies.

Importantly, the second challenge listed above introduces two priority actions to ensure the safe introduction of innovations:

• The monitoring of trials to adequately assess the therapeutic role of innovative health products and impact on professional practices.

• The integration across the Health Agency Networking Committee (Casa) of a monitoring process for the early identification of technological, medicinal and organisational innovations influencing safety of practices and care.

The publication of the Project coincides with the DGS’s 60th anniversary, to which the French magazine Médecine has dedicated an issue. The issue includes, among other contributions, a report from Mr. Mahmoud Zureik, Director at the National Agency for Medicines and Health Products Safety (ANSM), on the benefits of pharmaco-epidemiology studies in monitoring the safety of medicines.

A prior version of this post was originally published by the same authors in Practical Law – Life Sciences, November 2016 Issue (Thomson Reuters).

This post was originally co-authored by Patricia Carmona Botana.