A new book, Patient Mobility in the European Union Learning from experience, brings evidence-based information to the policy debate over health care and the role of the EU, in particular in the light of the Lisbon agenda and the discussions on the social implications of the EU internal market. The main issues addressed by patient mobility are: waiting lists and free capacities, centres of excellence/reference centres, closer co-operation in border regions and health care for persons undergoing long-term stays.
The book describes the current situation of patient mobility across national frontiers in the EU and proposes a series of 'common principles' to be shared in order to maximise the potential benefits of enhanced patient mobility, such as quicker access to care or improved access to centres of excellence. The authors name, for example, management of mobility, which requires extensive data on the market and fostering trust, which requires commonly approved reliable quality and safety standards, as issues to be addressed.
The publication is a result of an EU funded project Europe For Patients (E4P), which has studied the benefits and challenges of patient mobility in Europe with the aim of providing policy makers with evidence-based information to help decision-making in this field. The E4P is indeed funded under the EU's Scientific Support for Policy (SSP) scheme in the Sixth Framework Programme for research dev elopement (FP6).
In a separate development, the European Court of Justice recently ruled on a case of an English patient who, due to too long waiting list for her medical condition at the NHS, sought care in France and saw the refund of costs of her hip operation refused by the UK National Health Service (NHS). The ECJ ruled that the in order to refuse refund for treatment abroad, "the NHS must show that that waiting time does not exceed a medically acceptable period having regard to the patient’s condition and clinical needs".
