Proceedings

odies disclose information on the social responsibility within the health system of
that country and the way they perceive social responsibility. Moreover, the research
had in view to identify the information disclosed in the three areas of social
responsibility, namely society, environment and economy. For this purpose, we took
into consideration only the information disclosed in English. The extent to which
those countries offer such disclosure was diverse, an overall view of that situation
being presented in Appendix 1.
The performed research emphasizes that the relevant national bodies of the Member
States show concern for corporate social responsibility issues, but the disclosure of
such information is limited. We consider that an argument for this state of facts is
that this concept is relatively recent and, at international level, the public sector has
not shown great interest for disclosing information on social responsibility issues.
None of the investigated countries uses this phrase in the exact above-mentioned
form. The only country that uses a similar term is Ireland, designating it „corporate
accountability”. Moreover, some countries (Austria, Germany, Great Britain,
Denmark, Ireland, Lithuania, and Malta) use related terms: „responsibility”,
„accountability”, and „sustainability”.
Related to the social dimension of the corporate social responsibility concept, the
research points out that the entities involved in the public healthcare system are aware
of their responsibility towards the public and the time horizon over which they assume
this responsibility. Thus, Austria and the Nordic countries (especially Sweden) are
those most concerned for the short- and long-term responsibility towards the public.
As a sign of short-term responsibility towards the population we considered the
disclosure of information on the patient rights, on the importance given to their
individual needs and to the possibilities given to them to express their dissatisfaction
with the system. European countries that show such an orientation towards the
patients are: Austria, Belgium, Cyprus, Denmark, France, Ireland, Italy, Sweden and
the Czech Republic. As a sign of long-term responsibility towards the public in social
matters we took into consideration the measures taken for promoting a healthy
lifestyle and for preventing health problems. Numerous European countries have
stated their concern for health promotion and prevention: Austria, Belgium, Estonia,
Finland, Hungary, Malta, The Netherlands, Slovenia, Sweden and Romania. Germany
is the country that surprises by the fact it does not disclose information in English on
social responsibility. However, there are countries that demonstrate a wider vision on
the responsibility towards the public: Italy and Latvia. They both go beyond the
general discourse on the responsibility of public institutions and take into
consideration the responsibility of the employees in the system, whose part is critical
and complements the responsibility of policy-makers. By the use of the concept
„Clinical Governance”, Italy gives prominence to the role and the responsibility of the
employees of the healthcare system. Latvia guides the employees of the State Agency
of Medicines by publishing a Code of Ethics.
A particular case is the responsibility of the entities towards the environment.
Denmark is the only country in which the responsible bodies from the healthcare
system take responsibility towards the environment by reducing their energy
consumption and CO2 emission. The concern for the environment of other countries
(Spain, Estonia, Finland, and Hungary) is limited to the impact of the environment on
public health.
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