Harnessing patient power

In their statement on common values and principles of June 2006, EU health ministers put heavy emphasis on patient rights.

Asserting that health systems in the member states will continue to vary, they declared that decisions about entitlements to healthcare and mechanisms to finance and deliver that care should be taken in their national context.

But while asserting national differences over healthcare finance and delivery, they were ready to set out a common set of operating principles that citizens would expect to find throughout the EU, regardless of those national differences.

Good quality care, patient safety and evidence-based care systems were among those common principles. In addition the declaration asserts that: "All EU health systems aim to be patient-centred. This means they aim to involve patients in their treatment, to be transparent with them, and to offer them choices where this is possible…all systems should also be publicly accountable and ensure good governance and transparency."

The statement also declares that patients should have a right to redress and to confidentiality of personal information.

This top-down assertion of patients’ rights is being matched on the European stage by attempts to organise patients to assert their rights from the bottom up. The Italian citizens’ organisation Cittadinanzattiva is organising, through its European programme Active Citizenship Network, an event on 29 March in the European Parliament at which it will discuss the possibility of creating a European Patients’ Rights Day and the adoption of a European Charter of Patients Rights. It will also present the results of a study of patients’ rights in 14 EU countries.

The European Patients’ Forum, an umbrella organisation aiming to bring together pan-European patient groups active in European public health and health advocacy, holds its annual conference next week (20-21 March), with the empowerment of patients featuring prominently on its agenda.

European Voice holds its own annual healthcare conference next week as well (19-20 March). The event will see the launch of a directory of European patients’ groups. The producer, PatientView, is attempting to produce on a European scale, something modelled on its UK directory of patients’ groups. The signs are that patients will, given some encouragement from health ministers, improve their assertiveness on the European stage.

In their statement on common values and principles of June 2006, EU health ministers put heavy emphasis on patient rights.