The following extract from a case study by the European Agency for Safety and Health at Work describes the Preventative Health Care Act of 2015.
In 2015, Germany passed an act to strengthen health promotion and preventive healthcare, the Act to strengthen health promotion and prevention (Das Gesetz zur Stärkung der Gesundheitsförderung und der Prävention, Präventionsgesetz – PrävG). This Act provides a strong legal basis for cooperation between actors involved in prevention and health promotion. It stipulates that a National Prevention Strategy (Nationale Präventionsstrategie) be developed by the country’s different health insurance funds, to be implemented through a National Prevention Conference (Nationale Präventionskonferenz, NPK). The core of the law focuses on strengthening prevention and health promotion in the settings in which people live, work and learn, including daycare centres, schools and workplaces. This should be achieved through improving the coordination between the institutions responsible for these settings and involved in prevention and health promotion at the Federal Government, federal state (Länder) and municipal levels.
Expenditure on prevention and health promotion by the health insurance funds is to be almost doubled. The additional expenditure is expected to be offset in the medium and long term by cost savings in curative healthcare. As mentioned explicitly in the law, the goals developed under the National Prevention Strategy must take into account the goals of the Joint German Occupational Safety and Health Strategy (Gemeinsame Deutsche Arbeitsschutzstrategie, GDA). As of 2019, there will be common goals regarding healthy living and working under the two strategies. As a result of the concrete coordination and planning activities required by this law and the budget tied to it, this Act has laid important groundwork for MSD prevention in the workplace.