Register

Members' Multi-Site Search

Section Navigation: 

Get the most from our site

What is this? Select a job category closest to your own from the list provided and we will automatically tailor areas of the website to be more relevant to you.

News Digest

GMC statement on EU “health tourism”

4 July 2008
The GMC has responded to a European Commission proposal to make it easier for patients to get medical treatment elsewhere in Europe.

It acknowledges the right of patients to receive healthcare anywhere in the EU but states that "patients have an equal right to be confident that they will be treated by safe doctors who are properly regulated".

The GMC believes that the current legal framework means the ease with which a doctor can gain registration and take up practice in another EEA Member State is given a higher priority than ensuring robust regulatory safeguards across Europe. It views this as a risk to patient safety and believes that European legislation and the proposed directive must remove this risk.

The GMC is calling on the European Commission and Member States to include in any new law the following:

  • establish a legal duty on regulators across Europe to exchange regulatory information about doctors and to enable them to test the language competence of all EEA medical graduates
  • put in place a requirement that medical regulators have mechanisms to ensure the acceptable performance and current competence of their registrants
  • robust mechanisms across Europe to ensure patient safety whether it is the patient or the doctor moving.

Link: GMC Statement - EU draft directive on patient rights in cross-border healthcare

Back to News Digest