Dossier n. 148/2007 [Abstract] The 2005 Social accountability reports of Emilia-Romagna Local Health Units

The Social accountability report - that Emilia-Romagna Health Trusts (Local Health Units and Hospitals - LHUs) have to prepare as established by the regional Law n. 29 of 2004 - is:

• an annual document that should be presented with the balance sheet; the regional Law n. 29 defines it as the instrument for the Health Trust “to account for the health objectives that the Regional government and the Local Social and Health Conference have attributed to the Health Trust itself”;
• an instrument to help the relationships among the system’s main institutional actors (Health Trusts, Region, Local Social and Health Conferences);
• a document prepared according to specific regional guidelines.

In 2005 five Local Health Units elaborated their first experimental versions of Social accountability reports, and in 2006 for the first time all the eleven regional Local Health Units prepared their own documents. This experience is characterized by having systematized a model of social reporting; starting from this aspect, the volume presents a first and synthetic overall view of the eleven reports. In particular, it underlines the differences among the LHUs in preparing the documents: even though the administrations strictly followed the regional guidelines, each document is partly different and original from the others.

 The added value derived from this propositional approach is even bigger if considered that the Social accountability report is not only an instrument under construction that can be reviewed and changed, but also and mostly an improvable instrument that can be modified to strengthen the relationships between the Local Health Unit and the Local social and health conference, coming up to the informative needs of the conference itself.

 It is then important to underline that the collected material, the self-evaluation by each Local Health Unit of its own experience and the first comparison of the documents offer a useful and meaningful overview, to testify the vast and complex involvement, its diffusion and the ability of the LHUs to actively and originally interpret the regional scheme.