Subjects of public authority in the field of functioning of the blood system in Ukraine

Abstract

The article provides a comprehensive administrative and legal analysis of the system of public authorities involved in ensuring the functioning of the blood system in Ukraine. The relevance of the study is determined by the special importance of ensuring a sufficient supply of donor blood and blood components for healthcare institutions as a prerequisite for the effective exercise of the constitutional right to health care and medical assistance. Under martial law, the proper functioning of the blood system also becomes an important component of the resilience of the healthcare sector and the provision of the needs of the security and defence forces.

The methodological basis of the study comprises systemic-structural and functional approaches, which made it possible to determine the place of individual authorities and institutions within the public administration mechanism of the blood system. The formal-legal method was used to analyse the statutory competences of the relevant actors. Methods of analysis, synthesis, classification and generalisation were applied to distinguish between the concepts of a «blood system entity» and a «subject of public authority», to identify the legal links between the respective institutions and to formulate proposals for improving administrative and legal regulation.

It is substantiated that the statutory range of participants in the blood system is broader than the system of public authorities operating in this field. The legal status of a blood system entity, hospital blood bank, transfusion immunology laboratory or another participant in blood-related relations does not in itself imply the exercise of public authority. The article proposes a three-level functional classification of public authorities in this field: the strategic and regulatory level; the managerial and coordinating level; and the licensing and control level. The roles of the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine, the Ministry of Health of Ukraine, other state authorities, the authorities of the Autonomous Republic of Crimea, regional, Kyiv and Sevastopol city state administrations, local self-government bodies, the State Service of Ukraine on Medicines and Drugs Control, and the National Transfusion Centre are determined. The legal nature of the National Transfusion Committee is separately established as that of an advisory collegial body which should not be identified as an independent subject of public authority.

It is proved that a promising direction for improving legislation is a clearer statutory delimitation of the coordinating, regulatory and control powers of the main institutions of the blood system and specification of the legal nature of decisions of the National Transfusion Centre in its relations with blood system entities.