Contributors saw a need for better information to patients to enable informed choices about cross-border care and greater clarity about the procedures to follow, with a broad consensus that quality and safety of healthcare should be ensured by the country where treatment is provided.
Key results from the responses to the consultation include:
- The scale of cross-border healthcare represents about 1% of total healthcare expenses. It is larger for instance in border regions and in areas with high numbers of visitors from abroad. It is expected to grow;
- Greater clarity is needed over limits of cross-border healthcare under EU law, in particular it should be clearer when prior authorisation may be required or refused;
- Many contributors advocated European support to improve quality and safety in healthcare, such as through developing guidelines and indicators. Other suggestions included developing systems for exchanging patient data between countries and Europe-wide prescriptions;
- Suggestions for practical European support to national health systems included European networks of centres of reference; better sharing of healthcare innovations; and support for health investment through the structural funds.
Regarding the possibility of adopting legislation in this field, opinions were divided, with the two main options being to include any changes within the existing regulations on the coordination of social security systems, while other contributors preferred a new specific directive on health services in order to also tackle issues falling outside the scope of these regulations.
The Commission launched a public consultation on 26 September 2006 regarding EU action on health services. Over 270 responses were received from national governments, regional authorities, international and national umbrella organisations, social security institutions, universities, industry and individual citizens. The report issued at the Informal Council represents the Commission's summary of these responses. The Commission intends to bring forward proposals for EU action on health services toward the end of 2007.
The summary report and all individual responses to the consultation regarding "Community action on health services" are available at:
http://ec.europa.eu/health/ph_overview/co_operation/
mobility/results_open_consultation_en.htm
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