Health-EU Newsletter 203 - Focus

More efforts needed to implement the Cross-border Healthcare Directive to its full potential

Françoise Grossetête, Member of the European Parliament and Former Rapporteur on the Directive on Cross-border Healthcare, says that the Directive on Cross-border Healthcare is intended to clarify the rights of patients when they receive healthcare in another European Union country. Up until the time this Directive was implemented, there was no legal certainty, and patients were often left to themselves to try to receive healthcare in a different Member State and to be reimbursed for it, she says. In this sense, it is legislation that clearly impacts EU citizens.

Does the Directive encourage more people to seek healthcare abroad?

It is not a question of encouraging people to engage in 'medical tourism', but of allowing patients to benefit from the greatest expertise and most appropriate treatment available, even if this is not available in their own countries.

What has been the impact of the Directive so far?

This Directive has strengthened legal certainty in cross-border healthcare and reimbursement, both for the patients themselves and for the national authorities responsible for their management. I am also delighted that it has promoted greater cooperation between the Member States. Indeed, one of its key measures is the implementation of the European Reference Networks for rare and complex diseases. These networks unite treatment centres in different countries that are specialising in the same therapeutic areas. The way they are structured will allow for improvements in the diagnosis, treatment and management of rare diseases, while cooperation and the pooling of resources give us hope of great advances in research.

Great strides have already been made, and I am very happy that the Commission was able to officially launch the first wave of 24 Reference Networks in March 2017. They are a very concrete example of the benefits that Europe can gain when we choose to work together rather than individually in isolation.

What still needs to be done?

Implementing the Directive is a long and complex process and there is much left to do. To take full advantage of their rights, citizens first need to know that they have them! It must be said that the situation in this regard differs greatly from one Member State to another, as the Commission pointed out in its latest implementation report. National Contact Points have been set up to inform citizens, but many are still not being used. We must get the message out effectively that the Directive and the Reference Networks exist, not only to the citizens, but also to the national authorities. Finally, I would like to place greater emphasis on the interconnection of our healthcare systems, in the framework of increasingly rapid development of e-health. This interconnection is indispensable, and yet, when I was working on the Directive, not all the Member States, unfortunately, were ready to join forces. In the future, this gap must be filled.

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