Patients ‘shopping around’ carries risks says minister

Date: 27/06/02

By Martin Banks

PATIENTS' ability to 'shop around' the EU for health care is fraught with 'significant' risks, warns Belgium's social affairs minister.

Frank Vandenbroucke says that increasing patient mobility allows countries, such as the UK, to reduce hospital waiting lists and create European 'centres of excellence'.

But he warns there are potential pitfalls to allowing people to receive treatment in EU countries other than their own.

An increasing number of Britons are travelling to Belgium and other member states for surgery and other treatment because of long waiting lists in the UK.

Speaking in Cologne, Vandenbroucke said: 'Suppose UK citizens were entitled to health care anywhere in Europe, in Belgium for instance, without prior authorisation, with the National Health Service having to reimburse the costs.

'This would create potential problems both for the UK government and its citizens in terms of the quality of care and the risk of an uncontrollable bill.'

He added: 'Mobility of patients might also fuel the development of a 'two-speed' health care system in Belgium if British patients were to be treated at 'free' tariffs.

'Indeed, a growing influx of patients from abroad might nourish the development of an increasingly important 'non-convention' sector within Belgian health care, a development we would certainly not like to see.'

He also said that social policies should, in the main, remain the responsibility of national governments.

'Although there is a proper role for EU legislation in the social domain, social protection policy is, and should remain, the responsibility of regions and nation states,' said Vandenbroucke.

Patients' ability to 'shop around' the EU for health care is fraught with 'significant' risks, warns Belgium's social affairs minister, Frank Vandenbrouck.