Availability of services

People in Finland making use of social and health services are guaranteed statutory timeframes within which non-emergency assistance or treatment has to be made available. Emergency cases are to be given immediate attention.

Health care: Non-emergency health care examinations by a physician or nurse are available from health centres throughout Finland within three days of making an appointment. Phone contact and assistance is available immediately during working hours. Non-emergency treatment has to be arranged within three months, and non-emergency specialist treatment within six months. Hospital services are available by referral from a health centre physician, with a three-week timeframe for receiving an examination and a six-month limit for treatment.

Social welfare: Non-emergency timeframes apply to the provision of service needs assessments for people 75 or older and people on a national pension who receive special care. They also apply to providing child welfare need reports, and for meeting with and assessing the situation of people seeking social assistance

Confidentiality

Client and patient records are confidential. They may not be passed to a third party, even for technical purposes.

Clients and patients must be informed about the intended use of information and data about them, where else information and data about them is sought, where information is kept and who and under what circumstances it may be passed on.

Clients and patients are entitled to access the information and data about them, and to ensure that mistakes and deficient information are amended.

By 2011 Finland will have a standardised national electronic data system.

Complaints

If clients or patients in Finland are dissatisfied with the decisions, services, assistance, treatment or behaviour toward them, they may seek a change of decision, file an objection concerning a particular service or treatment procedure to the responsible authority, or complain to the supervising authority.

Complaints and objections are handled by municipal social service ombudsmen or health care ombudsmen and by the social and health departments of the State Provincial Offices.

Health care patient rights

Health care patients in Finland are entitled to timely and good quality attention and treatment. Patients are entitled to be treated with dignity, their privacy respected, and their individual and language requirements and culture taken into account. Treatment is provided on the basis of mutual consent between health care providers and patients. This applies to child patients too, whose opinions are sought when they are old enough to express them. Parents or guardians may not refuse the treatment of children with conditions that threaten life and health. Patients are guaranteed transparency of information concerning their health, patient records and waiting periods for treatment.

Further information
Rights of patients (MSAH's brochures 2005:5eng)
The National Advisory Board on Social Welfare and Health Care Ethics

Social welfare client rights

Finnish legislation on the status and rights of social welfare clients covers the provision of both public and private social welfare services. Social welfare clients are entitled to good quality services without discrimination. They must be given the right to participate in and influence the planning and implementation of services intended for them. They are entitled to be told of possible alternative procedures, to receive and examine all information concerning themselves and are obliged to give all relevant information about themselves. Clients are entitled to receive all decisions that concern them in writing and to seek changes to any decisions. They are entitled to complain of bad services or treatment. Municipal social service ombudsmen assist clients in seeking changes to decisions and in making complaints.