[Delegating medical responsibilities to non-medical staff]

Recently, the medical profession has increasingly engaged in the development of non-medical assistant jobs who try to take on more and more duties that have previously been the physicians' responsibility. Here, medical professionals from the fields of anaesthesiology and surgery should be mentioned in particular. Against this background of medical supply deficits (especially in the newly formed German states) the Federal Government already stated during the negotiations over coalition formation that nursing care professionals need to be involved into medical care much more strongly. In the context of the healthcare reform the Federal Government has thus arranged to alter the rules regarding statutory health insurance physicians by transferring original medical duties and responsibilities to nursing care professionals within the scope of pilot projects. Against this background the German Medical Association has asked all Scientific Medical Societies and medical professional associations to comment on the delegation of medical responsibilities.