FCCA ended the investigation into the ambulance services by healthcare districts and rescue departments

Based on a request for action by the Finnish Association of Private Care providers, the Finnish Competition and Consumer Authority (FCCA) investigated the activities of healthcare districts and rescue departments on the market of Emergency medical services and patient transfers outside emergency health care services carried out with an ambulance. According to the investigation by the FCCA, the healthcare districts and rescue departments did not operate on the same market as the private sector in the manner referred to in section 30 a of the Competition Act with regard to Emergency medical services. As for the patient transfers outside Emergency medical services, the FCCA did not consider it likely that the actions of the healthcare districts and rescue departments or the structure of their operations would have any significant impact on the prerequisites of sound and effective competition.

In the request for action made to the FCCA, the FCCA was asked to investigate, among other things, whether the healthcare districts and rescue departments should incorporate their Emergency medical services and patient transfer activities in order to remove the protection from bankruptcy and tax benefits they enjoy thanks to their position.

According to the decision of the FCCA, Emergency medical services are a part of a national health service based on the principle of solidarity and in principle, the nature of the operations is non-economic. However, it was not necessary to define the nature of Emergency medical services in more detail in order to resolve the issue, because the FCCA did not consider that the Emergency medical services by healthcare districts and rescue departments operated on the same market as the private sector.

The healthcare districts can take care of the patient transfers that are their statutory responsibility to organise as their own activities without them being considered activities in a competitive market environment under section 126 of the Local Government Act. Neither is a competitive market environment involved when hospital districts take care of the patient transfers under the responsibility of their member municipalities that the member municipalities have decided to assign to the hospital district. Therefore, the hospital districts could be considered to operate on the same market as the private sector in the manner referred to in section 30 a of the Competition Act in only a small part of the patient transfers by hospital districts.

In principle, rescue departments operate on the same market as the private sector when they provide patient transfers outside Emergency medical services. However, based on the investigation of the FCCA, the activities of rescue departments in providing patient transfers could be considered minor in relation to the whole.

The FCCA did not consider it likely that the actions of the healthcare districts and rescue departments or the structure of their operations would have any significant impact on the prerequisites of sound and effective competition. The FCCA terminated its processing of the case on 15 March 2018.

Further information: Senior Research Officer Teemu Karttunen, tel. +358 29 505 3315, email: firstname.lastname@kkv.fi