Replies of the Commission

• Author: European Court of Auditors
• Pages: 43-51

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REPLIES OF THE COMMISSION TO THE SPECIAL REPORT OF THE EUROPEAN

COURT OF AUDITORS

“EU ACTIONS FOR CROSS-BORDER HEALTHCARE: SIGNIFICANT AMBITIONS

BUT IMPROVED MANAGEMENT REQUIRED”

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

I. The Directive 2011/24/EU on the application of patients' rights in cross-border healthcare is seen

as a major development in EU health policy. It clarifies and codifies the rights to healthcare which

derive from individual judgments of the European Court of Justice. Moreover, it introduced a

number of significant flanking measures to enable patients' rights to cross-border healthcare to be

applied in practice.

V. The EU actions in cross-border healthcare encompass innovative infrastructure solutions,

supporting Member States in an area where they have the main competence and where the

development of national infrastructure and use of services at Member State level is very different

from one Member State to another.

VI. A robust framework is in place to monitor systematically the application of patients’ rights in

cross-border healthcare. The Commission works with the National Contact Points (NCPs) to

support the continuous improvement of their information provision. Furthermore, it published

recently the Guiding Principles for the practice of National Contact Points under the Cross-border

Healthcare Directive and a National Contact Point toolbox containing a range of checklists and

manuals to support a high quality, patient-oriented practice.

VII. E-prescriptions issued in Finland are now accepted in Estonia, with over 550 e-prescriptions

being dispensed between end of January and the end of February 2019. The exchange of patient

summaries could save lives of citizens travelling abroad by allowing doctors in the country of

destination to access the medical history of the patient and avoid wrong medications, allergies etc.

This is particularly relevant for countries with a large diaspora. When new cases will be added

(images, laboratory results), exchanging this information may bring savings to the healthcare

systems, by avoiding the repetition of tests.

Currently 2 million reimbursements are made every year for cross-border healthcare. There are 1.4

million cross-border workers and 17 million EU citizens are living in an EU Member State other

than their country of citizenship.

The Commission has set up an inter-service task force, which monitors the implementation of the

2018 Communication on enabling the digital transformation of health and care in the Digital Single

Market; empowering citizens and building a healthier society.

VIII. In the last few years, the Commission developed a coherent approach in supporting the

European Reference Networks (ERN) reflecting the innovative nature, the complexity and the

political sensitiveness of the ERN Initiative. Acknowledging the pioneer work on rare disease and

the innovative nature of the European Reference Networks, in 2017 the European Ombudsman,

Emily O'Reilly, gave the first Prize of the Award for Good Administration to DG SANTE for its

policy on rare diseases.

INTRODUCTION