On the afternoon of December 6, Deputy Inspector General of the Government Nguyen Van Cuong signed and issued the conclusion of the inspection of the responsibility for performing public duties of cadres, civil servants and public employees in handling administrative procedures and providing public services to people and businesses at the Ministry of Health .

According to the conclusion, through the inspection of 20 administrative procedures and 5 administrative procedure settlement records at 5 units under the Ministry of Health (Department of Drug Administration, Department of Medical Examination and Treatment Management, Department of Food Safety, Department of Traditional Medicine Management, Department of Infrastructure and Medical Equipment), the Government Inspectorate discovered a number of shortcomings and violations.

Of these, 19 administrative procedures have overdue records, 10 administrative procedures are overdue by over 50%, and some administrative procedures are overdue by 89-90%. Of these, some procedures have overdue records by an average of over 400 days. Some records take 2-4 years to receive, transfer, review, and request additional records, while the regulation is 3 working days.

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Ministry of Health Headquarters.

At the Drug Administration, there is a situation where the dossiers are submitted first and assessed first but are not processed first according to the principle of "first in, first out". When handing over the dossiers to the assessment experts, the priority order of assessment of each specific dossier and the completion deadline have not been stated.

According to the Government Inspectorate, the monitoring and management of the process of handling administrative procedure records is concluded to have many limitations and weaknesses. In many cases, records have expired but are still monitored and reported as being processed.

The Inspection Conclusion clearly stated that the Drug Administration Department has loosened the management and monitoring of the detailed list of administrative procedure settlement records of 3 administrative procedures, including granting, extending, changing and supplementing drug circulation registration certificates and drug ingredients arising before 2020, which were resolved during the inspection period or had not been resolved by the time of the inspection.

At the above 5 units, the Government Inspectorate said that there were situations where businesses were required to supplement and complete documents beyond the regulations, or requested to supplement more than the prescribed number of times; requests were incomplete, unclear, or required to supplement documents proving that the factors constituting drug prices were applied incorrectly according to legal regulations. As a result, according to the inspectorate, businesses had to supplement and explain many times, causing trouble for businesses.

The results of the inspection of a sample of 20 administrative procedures showed that the rate of overdue records in the fields of pharmacy, traditional medicine, and medical equipment was very high, with backlogs for many years, which is one of the factors leading to the shortage of drugs and equipment.

Along with limitations and weaknesses in records management and failure to fully comply with principles in handling records, according to the Government Inspectorate, this risks creating a mechanism of asking for and giving, causing inconvenience, not ensuring objectivity, fairness, and transparency in handling administrative procedures, causing frustration for people and businesses.

The Government Inspectorate requested the Ministry of Health to direct the Drug Administration to find solutions and resolutely implement rectification and immediately overcome the lax management and monitoring of records for handling a number of administrative procedures.

Based on the inspection conclusion and the Prime Minister's direction, the Government Inspectorate requested the Ministry of Health to review the responsibility of the head and the responsibility of the ministry's leaders related to the shortcomings, defects, and violations in state management and the settlement of administrative procedures and provision of public services to people and businesses stated in the inspection conclusion.

Under the authority of direction, review with leaders of departments, divisions, units, collectives and individuals under the Ministry of Health related to shortcomings, defects and violations; report to the Prime Minister.