MEPs vote to support a legal duty for EU healthcare regulators to share information and ensure patient safety

25 May 2007

MEPs voted in the European Parliament this week (Wednesday 23 May) to support AURE’s call for a new legal duty on healthcare professional regulators in the European Union. The duty would require regulatory authorities across the EU to alert each other about incompetent or dangerous health professionals. If adopted by the Commission, AURE believes that this proposal will help to ensure the confidence of patients and the public in registered practitioners operating throughout the EU.

Hugh Simpson, Convenor of AURE said:

“We are delighted that MEPs have backed AURE’s call for a legal duty. If taken forward by the Commission, this proposal will support free movement of high quality competent professionals and help to protect the public where their safety may be at risk.”

The news is a considerable win for the Alliance of UK Health Regulators on Europe (AURE), a coalition of all 10 UK health and social care professional regulators who have been actively lobbying members of Parliament and the Commission in the interests of patients. Placing a new legal duty on regulators across the EU to exchange registration and disciplinary information, and to act on it, will provide the tools to enable free-movement whilst at the same time ensuring the safety of patients and the public.

MEPs were voting on a Parliamentary report on European health services. The Report also recognised AURE’s concern that current European rules do not take account of whether health professionals are up to date and fit to practise when moving to work in another member state.

There is a significant level of mobility of healthcare professionals across European borders. For example, in 2005, over 7000 practitioners from the EEA came to the UK to register with AURE’s members and find work.  The proposals on legal duty and ongoing fitness to practise were first raised in AURE’s response to the European Commission’s consultation regarding Community Action on Health Services submitted in January this year.

 

Ends

For further information please contact:
Tanya Royer, Press Office, AURE, +44 (0)20 7189 5454, 07795 523 586

Notes to editors:

  1. In 2006 the European Parliament called for health to be removed from the Services Directive.  This was backed by the European Commission and paved the way for the European Commission to reconsider how cross-border healthcare in Europe should be handled.
  2. In parallel to this the European Parliament has produced an ‘own-initiative’ report considering the implications of the removal of healthcare from the scope of the Services Directive. This report was drafted within the European Parliament’s Internal Market and Consumer Protection Committee by French Socialist MEP, Bernadette Vergnaud. The Commission will take this report into account when considering proposals on cross-border healthcare in Europe, which are due to be published in part later this year. 
  3. AURE is a network of the 10 UK health and social care regulators and exists to respond to European Union developments relevant to health and social care regulation and patient and public safety in the UK.  Member organisations are: the General Medical Council, General Dental Council, Nursing and Midwifery Council, General Osteopathic Council, General Social Care Council, General Chiropractic Council, Royal Pharmaceutical Society of Great Britain, Pharmaceutical Society of Northern Ireland, Health Professions Council, General Optical Council. Further information about AURE is available here: http://www.aure.org.uk/
  4. AURE exists to respond to European Union developments that have an impact on health and social care regulation and patient and public safety in the UK.  We do not represent the professional interests of health and social care professionals.