agencies Ministry of Health and Social Policy The Ministry of Health and Social Policy develops the policies of the Government of Spain in matters of health, in planning and delivery of services, as well as exercising the purview of the General Administration of the State to assure citizens the right to protection of their health. The ministry has its headquarters on the Paseo del Prado in Madrid, across the street from the Museo del Prado. The Royal Decree 1041/2009 of 29 June lays out the basic organic structure of the Spanish Ministry of Health and Social Policy. From the date of that decree, the new ministry assumed the functions of, and superseded the former Ministry of Health and Consumption (Ministerio de Sanidad y Consumo) and Secretary of State for Social Policy, Family, and Attention to Dependency and Disability (Secretaría de Estado de Política Social, Familia y Atención a la Dependencia y a la Discapacidad). The objective of this reorganization is to reinforce the role of the single ministry as the instrument of cohesion for the National Health System (SNS), adding to the portfolio of the Secretary General of Health purview in matters of the quality of the SNS by adding to it the Agency of Quality of the National Health System (Agencia de Calidad del Sistema Nacional de Salud) and the General Directorate of Advanced Therapies and Transplants (Dirección General de Terapias Avanzadas y Trasplantes). Interterritorial Council of the Spanish National Health Service The General Health Law of 1986 created the Interterritorial Council of the Spanish National Health Service (Consejo Interterritorial del Servicio Nacional de Salud, CISNS) as the organ of general coordination in matters related to health between the central State and the autonomous communities who were given authority in health matters under that law. It is jointly composed, and coordinates the basic lines of health policy in matters affecting contracts; acquisition of health and pharmaceutical products, as well as other related goods and services; as well as basic health personnel policies. The 2003 Law of Cohesion and Quality of the SNS introduced significant changes in the composition, functioning, and purview of the CISNS. Under this law, the CISNS functions variously as a plenary body, by delegated committees, through technical commissions, and through work groups. It meets as a plenary body at the initiative of its president or at the initiative of one-third of its members; plenary meetings occur