Finland´s Pandemic Preparedness Plan for Healthcare and Social Welfare

Objectives

Finland’s pandemic preparedness plan provides a national framework for preventing and managing pandemics and supporting recovery in healthcare and social welfare. It aims to protect life, health, safety, fundamental rights and the continuity of adequate services, while reducing wider societal harm and aligning sectoral, regional, organisational and operational plans into an effective national whole.[1][2]

• Promote health security and prevent pandemic-related adverse effects on people and society, while ensuring adequate healthcare and social welfare services.[1]
• Apply a cyclical model of preparedness, response, recovery and evaluation across inter-pandemic, alert, pandemic and transition phases.[3]
• Protect high-risk and underserved groups, equity, gender equality, children’s best interests, accessibility for persons with disabilities and the needs of people facing barriers to services.[3]
• Use a One Health approach linking human, animal and environmental health, particularly for zoonotic threats and pathogen spillover.[3]
• Address pandemic risks arising from pathogen emergence and mutation, animal-to-human transmission, climate change, urbanisation, biodiversity loss and international travel.[1]
• Prioritise prevention and control of infections, reduction of morbidity and excess mortality, protection of vulnerable groups, safeguarding of services, restoration of normal societal functioning and minimisation of direct and indirect harms.[4]
• Maintain core preparedness capabilities in leadership, coordination, shared situation awareness, risk assessment, communication, diagnostics, material security, medicines, vaccines, workforce capacity and service continuity.[5]

The plan treats pandemic strategies as adaptable to the pathogen, epidemiological conditions, available resources, medicines and vaccines. Strategies should be based on current evidence, updated as knowledge and circumstances change, and supported by regional strategies and implementation plans where required.[6][7]

A central strategic objective is to make pandemic-management decisions necessary, timely and proportionate. Measures should maximise health benefits from limited resources, consider cost-effectiveness and wider harms, and be revised as evidence on pathogen characteristics and intervention effectiveness develops.[8][9]

Implementation

Implementation combines nationally led strategy, legal steering and cross-government coordination with regionally led practical management. The Ministry of Social Affairs and Health guides national healthcare and social welfare preparedness, supervises implementation and maintains the plan, while wellbeing services counties hold primary responsibility for regional delivery and continuity of services.[10][9]

• Coordinate whole-of-government action through the Prime Minister’s Office, ministries, national authorities and, where needed, government-appointed cabinet committees and advisory structures.[11]
• Organise regional preparedness through wellbeing services counties, collaborative areas led by university-hospital counties, preparedness centres, municipalities, Regional State Administrative Agencies and the City of Helsinki and HUS Group.[12][13]
• Use the comprehensive security model to engage authorities, businesses, research organisations, non-governmental organisations, communities and the population in planning, exercises, response and recovery.[14][11]
• Maintain legal compliance under the Communicable Diseases Act, healthcare and social welfare legislation, the Emergency Powers Act, European Union law and international obligations, particularly when restrictions affect fundamental rights.[2]
• Assess restrictions and other binding measures against statutory powers, necessity, proportionality, epidemiological evidence, expected development and effects on high-risk groups and the wider population.[15][16]
• Maintain a common and dynamic situation picture across local, regional, national and international levels to support coordinated decisions, public communication and resource allocation.[3][9]

Situation awareness is built from laboratory and register data, clinical surveillance, wastewater monitoring, animal-disease surveillance, service-operation information, material and workforce data, international alerts and risk assessments. The Ministry of Social Affairs and Health and five preparedness centres develop the national healthcare and social welfare situation picture with support from the Finnish Institute for Health and Welfare and other authorities.[17][18]Indicators may cover transmission, testing, positivity, hospitalisations, mortality, vaccination coverage, staffing, service burden, healthcare-associated infections, restrictions and wider societal impacts.[19][20]

Risk assessment should be updated as information on a pathogen, immunity, vaccination, population contacts and protective measures changes. Modelling, nowcasting, forecasting and scenarios are used to anticipate case numbers, hospital and intensive-care demand, mortality and potential effects of interventions.[21][22]Strategies should define their own indicators, monitoring frequency, methods and responsible actors, and should undergo subsequent comprehensive evaluation.[7]

Operational delivery includes rapid and scalable microbiological diagnostics through county-organised laboratory networks, supported by the Finnish Institute for Health and Welfare as national expert laboratory. Capacity planning covers sampling, laboratory staff, equipment, reagents, facilities, biosafety and the use of sequencing to identify pathogen changes and circulating strains.[23][24][25]

Preparedness also requires diversified procurement, commercial and emergency stockpiles, mandatory medicine reserves, decentralised storage, supply-chain monitoring and domestic production-capacity reservations. Regional preparedness centres compile material situation pictures, while the Ministry of Social Affairs and Health collates the national picture.[26][27]

Prevention and response combine vaccination, medicines, voluntary recommendations, infection-control measures, workplace protections, testing, contact tracing, isolation, quarantine, border health security and targeted restrictions where justified. Vaccination is organised by wellbeing services counties, with national coordination by the Ministry of Social Affairs and Health and the Finnish Institute for Health and Welfare.[15][28][29][30]

Communication is an integral operational function: it should be open, accessible, multilingual, multi-channel and connected to leadership and the situation picture. Authorities communicate within their remit, while the Ministry of Social Affairs and Health directs national health-sector communication with the Finnish Institute for Health and Welfare and other ministries.[22][31]

Funding is primarily embedded in normal public-sector responsibilities, with central-government support available where pandemic tasks or service needs expand. The source does not provide a single quantified pandemic-preparedness budget, although it identifies ordinary funding, discretionary grants, parliamentary appropriations, social-security protections and European Union financing as relevant mechanisms.[32][33]

Monitoring & Evaluation

Pandemic management is supported by a dynamic, shared situation picture integrating surveillance, laboratory diagnostics, service-system burden, resource availability, risk assessment, modelling, communication intelligence and information from national, regional and international actors.[3][9][20][17]

• Maintain national and regional situation pictures through the Ministry of Social Affairs and Health, preparedness centres, wellbeing services counties, the Finnish Institute for Health and Welfare, Regional State Administrative Agencies, municipalities and other authorities.[12][34][21][17]
• Monitor infectious diseases through the national Communicable Diseases Register, other statutory registers, laboratory-based surveillance, respiratory sampling, wastewater surveillance, register data and animal-disease surveillance.[34][17][18]
• Apply internationally uniform case definitions where appropriate, including definitions for suspected and confirmed infection, infectious cases, hospitalisation and fatalities.[19]
• Select pandemic-specific indicators according to their availability, reliability and usefulness, and revise them as the epidemiological situation changes.[19]Indicators may cover infection incidence, testing volume and positivity, wastewater signals, seroprevalence, pathogen mutations, reproduction number, hospitalisations, intensive-care demand, mortality, vaccination coverage, healthcare-associated infections, staffing and broader societal effects.[35][20][17]
• Disaggregate information by age, region and relevant individual-level factors to identify risks and assess impacts on groups facing greater health risks or barriers to services.[19][35]
• Use nowcasting, forecasting and scenario modelling to anticipate infections, hospital and intensive-care demand, and mortality, updating assumptions as evidence on the pathogen, immunity and population behaviour develops.[21]
• Assess the necessity, proportionality, timeliness, effectiveness and cost-effectiveness of measures against the current situation picture, available resources, high-risk groups and wider benefits and harms.[8][2][9][15]
• Collect information on interventions, their resource use and their wider societal advantages and disadvantages, and complement routine data with separate effectiveness evaluations, including qualitative research where suitable.[8]
• Monitor operational functions including diagnostic capacity, material stocks, consumption, orders, delivery times, pharmaceutical availability, vaccine safety and effectiveness, service bottlenecks, workforce availability, contact-tracing performance and the continuity of essential services.[25][27][36][37][38]
• Use contact-tracing indicators including testing and tracing response times, the share of infections traced, and the proportion of people becoming ill while in quarantine.[39]
• Monitor communications through conventional and social media, surveys of public awareness, attitudes, behaviour, trust and commitment, and feedback on misinformation and information needs.[40]
• Report internationally through the Finnish Institute for Health and Welfare as Finland’s National Focal Point under the International Health Regulations and through European Union communicable-disease reporting arrangements; influenza findings are submitted weekly to the World Health Organization FluNet database.[34][18]
• Publish situation information by default where possible, while recording specific grounds for withholding information.[9][21]Regular situation-awareness and thematic reports, supported by press conferences, are identified as reporting mechanisms.[17]
• Review preparedness through exercises, including those organised by Regional State Administrative Agencies, and use lessons from incidents and evaluations to update plans, strategies and operational practices.[12][10][7]
• Maintain accountability through statutory responsibilities, supervision of private providers, legal review of restrictions on fundamental rights, laboratory licensing and biosafety controls, product and stockpiling supervision, and ministerial responsibility for guiding, supervising and updating the plan.[10][2][41][23][42]

No single consolidated national indicator framework, universal reporting timetable, quantitative performance targets or dedicated plan-wide audit mechanism is specified in the supplied material.[13][6][30]

Costing & Financing

Financing is principally embedded in ordinary public-sector operations and statutory preparedness responsibilities, with additional central-government support available when pandemic-related duties or service demand expand beyond local or regional resources.[14][32]The material emphasises resource readiness, security of supply and cost-effective decision-making, but provides no quantified overall pandemic-preparedness budget or funding gap.[8][43]

• Fund preparedness through the normal duties of healthcare and social welfare authorities and agencies, while calculating central-government funding for wellbeing services counties using factors including population and service needs.[32]
• Allow wellbeing services counties to allocate universal funding between functions and agree cost sharing for joint activities within collaborative areas.[32]
• Adjust universal funding when pandemic-related tasks or service needs change, and provide discretionary government grants where a county’s resources are insufficient for a special reason.[32]
• Use parliamentary appropriations to finance central-government agencies and compensate special preparedness duties where applicable.[32]Public expenditure is allocated through spending limits, annual fiscal planning and the state Budget, with in-year changes handled through supplementary budgets approved by Parliament.[33]
• Seek European Union funding instruments for research, development and innovation by public authorities, research institutions and businesses.[33]European cooperation also includes joint procurement of medical countermeasures and emergency financial support during public-health threats.[44]
• Mobilise resources for diagnostics, including staffing, facilities, equipment, reagents, supplies, automation, additional sampling capacity, stockpiles and, where feasible, external capacity.[25][43]
• Maintain material preparedness through diversified procurement, commercial and user stocks, security stockpiles, state emergency stockpiles, mandatory medicine reserves and production-capacity reservations.[26][27]
• Recognise that stockpiling creates capital, storage-space, recycling and loss costs, while proactive procurement under normal conditions may reduce prices relative to pandemic purchasing.[27]Production-capacity reservations may reduce expiry losses and storage costs.[27]
• Support medicine and vaccine development through public funding, academic research, private investment, large-scale clinical research and international cooperation.[45]Development and production acceleration may require financial risk investment before safety and efficacy are fully established.[45][46]
• Fund vaccines in the national vaccination programme and other general vaccinations decided by government from state funds.[29]
• Protect livelihoods through communicable disease allowance, sickness allowance and, where required, unemployment security, housing allowance and social assistance.[33]
• Use the National Emergency Supply Fund to support liquidity and financial measures needed to safeguard security of supply during pandemics and other sudden, unexpected situations.[47]
• Recognise that pandemics create human and economic costs through illness, mortality, greater healthcare demand, disruption to daily life and economic activity, and effects on security of supply.[10]
• Consider cost-effectiveness when choosing and evaluating interventions, including vaccination, and account for resources used alongside health benefits and wider societal effects.[8][36]

During COVID-19, the central government reimbursed municipalities, hospital districts and Åland for directly incurred costs and provided increased transfers and grants, but the material notes that municipal and hospital-district grants did not fully cover costs and affected the longer-term funding base.[32]Health examinations for people entering Finland are free of charge, whereas departing travellers generally pay for laboratory-test certificates required by destination countries unless otherwise provided.[48]