[Legal occupational standards and clinical reality]

Permanently rising costs--especially caused by the high proportion of staffing costs (depending on the system)--conflict with a continuous budgetary coverage and the consequent exhaustion of an individual hospital's commercial reserves. The solution to this problem cannot be found by making far-reaching staff cuts, because the liability law alone already presents an insurmountable hurdle in this respect. Furthermore, the pressure on hospitals for rationalization is increased because high legal requirements--such as are given for example by the law regulating working hours--must be implemented in practice. There is a need for new, intelligent solutions in order to satisfy the legal requirements to their full extent. The responsible senior consultants, who will in future hold the function of "health managers" with budgetary responsibility, must be able to fulfill these new duties as well as further ones. It is the legislator's task to create the requisite legal basis--especially in Labour law.