Doctor mobility directive ‘puts patients at risk’

Date: 10/10/02

By Karen Carstens

A PROPOSED EU directive designed to boost labour mobility among doctors and nurses would pose a threat to patient safety if adopted in its current form, a British health watchdog has warned.

Members of AURE, the Alliance of UK Health Regulators on Europe, are pressing for amendments to the draft directive, which seeks to enforce mutual recognition of qualifications across Europe.

'We have formed this alliance because we all exist to protect the public and uphold the highest standards of care,' said Nairn Wilson, president of Britain's General Dental Council, one of ten health and social care regulators that have joined forces to create AURE.

'We believe that the directive should be an opportunity to secure the standards we would like to see but the draft in its current form fails to do this.'

Under the current Commission proposal, health care professionals from any EU country would be allowed to work for up to four months a year, every year, in any other member state without being registered with national regulators in that country.

According to AURE, the directive also proposes to water down public protection safeguards, meaning that health regulators cannot assure the public that everyone coming onto its register is able to practise safely.

The draft EU directive on the mutual recognition of professional qualifications is currently being discussed in a first reading at the European Parliament.

While the Parliament appears to take the concerns of groups like AURE seriously, the Commission does not seem to want to budge on the matter, an AURE spokeswoman said.

A proposed EU directive designed to boost labour mobility among doctors and nurses would pose a threat to patient safety if adopted in its current form, a British health watchdog has warned.