Luxembourg On Track to Create National Health Observatory

During its session on Thursday 11 February 2021, Luxembourg's Chamber of Deputies (Parliament) unanimously voted in favour of the law establishing a National Health Observatory.

The Ministry of Health recalled that the current health systems must face many challenges, such as an aging population, which generates growing needs for healthcare, an increase in chronic and degenerative diseases, as well as accidents, the need to ensure universal and equitable access to the best possible care and an evolution of medical techniques with increasingly specialised and individualised treatments.

In this context, the need for efficient governance has become increasingly important in order to assess whether the resources allocated to the health system meet the objectives set.

However, the quality and efficiency of the health system can only be guaranteed if they are measured and analysed on objective and validated bases. The Health Ministry thus maintained that the national resources producing this data should be networked in order to centralise and supplement them.

Objectives and missions

As foreseen in the government programme, the missions of the National Health Observatory will include the centralisation / collection of medical demographic data and of other health professions and the analysis of registers of illnesses and deaths.

The general objective of the Observatory is to contribute to improving the state of health of the population and of the health system. Its role is to help the government and its partners to define the orientations and content of policies favourable to the health of the population, compatible with the sustainability of the health system, and to monitor and evaluate it.

Likewise, it is a tool for documenting, observing and analysing data relating to the health of the population, its determinants, the health system and its performance. It is also expected to contribute to the rationalisation of health information through the centralised cooperation of the players involved in data collection.

As such, its missions are as follows:

- to evaluate (i.e. the state of health of the population, risk behaviours and the quality, efficiency and accessibility of the health system);

- to propose to the Minister of Health the public health priorities aimed at improving the state of health of the population or of the health system;

- to study the evolution and adequacy of the resources of health professionals intervening within the health system to meet the health needs of the population;

- to establish a health card;

- to publish and share information on the state of health of the population and the health system.

Structure and functioning 

The National Health Observatory is aimed at fulfilling the role of expertise which brings an external perspective on the health system in order to contribute to an objective debate. It works in complete independence and neutrality with regard to its observation tools, findings and proposals.

This is an administration piloted by a Council of Observers, made up of national and international experts specialising in the field, whose multisectorality makes it possible to orient the work of the Observatory, while ensuring the scientific independence of its work.

A national report on the state of health of the population, the determinants of health and the health system will be produced every three years.