Ros in the Lords: Short Debate, EU Healthcare

Here's another of Ros's interventions, this time from a short debate on 11 January last year.

At the time, Ros was a member of the late lamented EU Sub-Committee G, which was abolished later in the year, and the debate offered an opportunity to refer to their recently issued report.

Baroness Scott of Needham Market (Liberal Democrat)

My Lords, I wish to focus on the mutual recognition of professional qualifications directive, which provides the framework within which healthcare professionals move around within the EU.

I am entirely supportive of the notion of free movement across the Union and I have no doubts about the benefits that the mobility of healthcare professionals can bring to patients and to the medical profession. However, a number of high-profile cases have called the workings of the directive into question, and all UK regulators have expressed strong concerns that the current system forces them to admit individuals who do not meet the standards that would be required of UK or non-EU professionals.

Professional mobility should never be at the expense of patient safety. There is evidence that, as it currently stands, the directive is striking the wrong balance. The requirements as currently set out are not sufficient to ensure that qualifications and skills are adequate and up to date. We need a competence-based approach, rather than a one-off qualification, fixed at a particular point in time and hard to compare across jurisdictions. Knowing that an individual who has not practised for years has had to take steps to come up to date is essential.

Authorities in host member states must be able to access adequate information regarding the professional history of an individual and to seek answers to any queries they may have. Use of the Internal Market Information System is likely to represent a simpler and more cost-effective option than the proposed European professional card. There is currently no alert system to inform member states when a fitness-to-practise case is brought against an individual. If such a system were to be introduced in some member states, it would be hindered by the use of domestic data-protection legislation.

The ability to communicate effectively in the language of the host member state is critical to safe and effective practice and is the most obvious cause of concern to patients. The directive fails to ensure that professionals meet the necessary standards.

This issue is of particular interest in our area, after the unfortunate incident when a German locum administered ten times the correct dosage of a painkiller, causing the death of his patient in 2008. It is also problematic in that non-EU doctors practising here need to demonstrate a satisfactory level of English, whereas intra-EU doctors don't.

Hopefully, the EU directive that covers this point will be of help...