Political reform process in the course of the COVID 19 pandemic: The pact for public health services

The German federal and state governments have agreed on a 4 billion euro pact for the Public Health Services (ÖGD) to strengthen the ÖGD in terms of personnel and infrastructure. The sustainable strengthening of the ÖGD plays a central role to ensure health protection measures for crisis management. In order for the ÖGD to be able to fulfil its complex task of providing high-quality health care on site in the long term, it will be necessary to optimize existing structures so that acute threat situations as well as more long-term and strategically oriented planning tasks can be mastered. © 2021 De Gruyter. All rights reserved.