Poland is one of the 2022 United Nations Public Service Awards winners!

Every year, on World Public Service Day, the United Nations gives away its most prestigious honours – the UN Public Service Award. Today on June 22, the 2022 UNPS Day commemoration was celebrated online. The main discussed point was the role of public institutions and public servants in building back better from COVID-19 as they work to meet the 2030 deadline for implementing the Sustainable Development Goals. This year, a Polish project – the State Health Inspection Record System (SEPIS) was awarded. This distinction shows that Poland sets world standards in the area of using digital tools to respond to crisis situations.

The United Nations Public Service Awards is the most prestigious international recognition of excellence in public service. It rewards the creative achievements and contributions of public service institutions that lead to a more effective and responsive public administration in countries worldwide. Through an annual competition, the UN Public Service Awards promotes the role, professionalism and visibility of public service. (publicadministration.un.org)

The outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic caused the arousal of new Government’s key priorities regarding the response to this challenge in an organized manner and using the latest technologies. The State Sanitary Inspection, headed by the Chief Sanitary Inspector, played a key role in this process. They were responsible for the most important processes such as imposing and removing quarantines, establishing sanitary requirements and answering citizens’ questions. In order to make these processes as automated as possible, at the request of Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki, the Minister of Digitization, Marek Zagórski, together with the Chief Sanitary Inspector, began work on the State Health Inspection Record System (SEPIS). Later, the implementation and development of the project was the responsibility of the GovTech Center in the Chancellery of the Prime Minister and was led by Justyna Orłowska. Thanks to thousands of hours of intensive research on the needs of users, enormous commitment of Sanepid employees working in extremely difficult pandemic conditions and the best practices in the field of service design, the system has quickly become a single tool for 11,000 employees of sanitary. Also, epidemiological stations from all over the country are able to carry out all their tasks from epidemiological interviews to reporting. This user-friendly IT project was appreciated by the United Nations today.

Poland with the most prestigious UN – Public Service Award. Thus, Poland’s digital response to the pandemic crisis was recognized as the best in the world. Thank you to the teams @GIS_gov, @CyfryzacjaKPRM and @GovTechPL for cooperation on this project, said  GovTech Polska Program Director Justyna Orlowska on Twitter.com