Health accelerates the approval of three royal decrees before the November 29 elections

The electoral advance announced by the President of the Government, Pedro Sánchez, on November 29, has not caught the Ministry of Health off the wrong foot. At least this is what the Secretary of State for Health, Javier Padilla, suggests, recognizing that they will now have to accelerate to carry out some of the regulations that they had in their hands and that are advanced. And the Government does not come into operation until the day after the elections, that is, as of November 30, "there we enter - he explains - into energy saving mode." But "executive activity continues in everything that has to do with royal decrees, ministerial orders...".

Among the most "remarkable" that the ministry still has in its hands and on which it is working for the Council of Ministers to approve, are "the royal decree on Tobacco that prohibits flavorings and limits the amount of nicotine that nicotine sachets can have and equates some regulation of new forms of tobacco."

Another of the projects that Health hopes to have completed and approved before taking office is "the royal decree that modifies Royal Decree 1146/2006, known as that of residents and which is the one that eliminates the 24-hour guards of residents in Health Sciences," he details.

Finally, the Secretary of State for Health cites the "royal decree with the statutes of the State Public Health Agency that was pending", after the creation of the Agency and the establishment of its headquarters in Zaragoza. The intention is for these three standards to be approved before November 30: "We are working on it and stepping on the accelerator a little more than we had to, but yes," he acknowledges. Added to this is "the reference price order that will be published in the coming days."

Unlike what happens with the bills that were already in Parliament for parliamentary processing and that decline with the dissolution of the Cortes, the royal decrees, not the royal decree-laws, do not need the endorsement of the Chambers and, therefore, "once approved by the Government they go to the Official State Gazette" and come into force.

Throughout this legislature that is now ending, the team led by Mónica García has sent to Parliament several bills that return to the starting box, among them the Universality Bill, the Equity and Cohesion of the National Health System, the Public Management and Integrity of the SNS, or more recently the Bill on Patient Organizations, the Law on Medicines and the Framework Statute. "No one can blame us for not trying to reach everything we could at all times and if there was an obstacle in some way, explore others," says Padilla.

Specifically, he cites the Universality Law, which has remained in the process of amendments to the entirety since June 2024 and which for the Secretary of State was "the main legacy" that this ministry wanted to leave: "We saw that the [parliamentary] balance was complicated and we worked the route of the royal decree, which allowed us to carry out 95% of the things that were in the law. I always say that Royal Decree 180/2026, which is the Universality Law, is valid. perfectly a legislature."

He does acknowledge that he is "particularly sad that the Medicines Bill and the Patient Organizations Bill do not go forward", although he is convinced that "they will be approved in one way or another with a very high percentage of the text." He argues that both "have a very notable singularity and that is that they do not belong to the Government that promotes them, but also to the mass of different actors who are directly challenged by them."

The draft Framework Statute Law, rejected in its entirety by doctors and causing strikes and protests by doctors, also declines. The text was also opposed by PP, Vox, PNV and Junts, which had already announced an amendment to the entire project. On this point, Padilla believes that "it is very easy to say that you are against it when you do not have to vote to overthrow the progress in rights of an enormously important part of the generality of health professionals. The groups that were against the project - he points out - have not spoken about the content of the law at any time; they have avoided it. It is very easy to take a position against it in a debate or even in the Interterritorial Council, which has no power to vote."

He regrets that, after 23 years of validity of the Framework Statute, approved during the Government of José María Aznar, "one more legislature has passed without reforming it", but at the same time, he is convinced that "sooner or later it will arrive."