Healthcare councils and social control: a comparative study of the accountability reports by State Healthcare Secretariats

Abstract

The exercise of social control is one of the democratic practices applied to the Brazilian national healthcare system. Different mechanisms were provided to this end, among which are the accountability reports. These reports are prepared by the Healthcare Secretariats and submitted to deliberation of their respective Healthcare Councils, in order to ensure transparency in public actions. This article discusses a comparative analysis of the accountability reports from different State Healthcare Secretariats, as a mean of publicizing this type of information. A survey of qualitative nature was conducted on documents which covered the years 2008 and 2009 for the following states: Paraná, Santa Catarina, Rio Grande do Sul, Espírito Santo and Rio de Janeiro. The results suggest that, although the State Secretariats disclose most of the variables evaluated, Healthcare Councils do not explicit the public management analysis on their own statements. This suggests that the evaluation process for this type of information needs to be improved with regards to the way it is interpreted and the recommendations it makes to improve public healthcare policies. Further issues to be addressed are: defining priorities when applying funds and establishing goals and objectives, since these do not yet feature in most of the accountability reports issued by the States. Future research should seek to establish if the scale of the involvement of the healthcare councils actually leads to improved results in their accountability reports.