Opinion on "access to health services in the EU"

On 6 November EPF submitted comments to the public consultation of the European Commission and the expert panel on effective ways of investing in health on ‘access to health services in the EU’.

The EPF comments are based on comments received by members after a call for comments in the weekly insiders, and on EPF positions and work to date on access to healthcare and patient empowerment.

The EPF comments are accessible here: http://www.eu-patient.eu/globalassets/policy/access/epf-comments-on-expert-panel-opinion-on-access---final.pdf

EPF comments

Overall the European Patients’ Forum welcomes the expert panel opinion which makes recommendations on multiple dimensions of access to healthcare that are important to EU patients. However, one key gap highlighted by EPF in the comments is that the recommendations of the expert panel don’t take fully into account the increasing evidence as regards benefit of patient centred healthcare and patient empowerment. In EPF’s perspective measures to support patient centred healthcare need to become part of policies to improve patient equitable access to high quality safe healthcare.