Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2009-04-23-Speech-4-008"
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"en.20090423.3.4-008"2
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".
Mr President, I have a very difficult task and a very easy task. It is very difficult because this dossier is very complicated and very sensitive, and it is a dossier on which, personally, I have done very little work. It is very easy because it is a report by my distinguished colleague, John Bowis, who, as you say, is currently recovering from major heart surgery, undertaken a couple of weeks ago in Brussels.
He has done an amazing job in bringing this dossier to such a successful conclusion today and, indeed, in laying the foundations for this success in his original report on patient mobility way back in June 2005. I am sure he would also wish me to thank the Commissioner personally for her support, to thank the shadow rapporteurs and to thank our group secretariat, and indeed his own research assistant, for the huge efforts they have all made to secure broad agreement on so many of the controversial issues. With their help, John has sought to shed light on what has been a very murky area, and to bring clarity where uncertainty prevailed before, based consistently on the twin principles that the patient must always come first and that patient choice should be determined by needs and not by means.
For the last 10 years, European citizens have been going to the courts to fight for their right to go to another Member State for treatment. It is clear that patients want this right, and that they deserve this right and are entitled to this right. They should not have to go to court in order to achieve it. The proposal before us now is our chance to make this a reality. Now is the time for us, as politicians, to take our responsibility and to replace the need for the judges who have gone before, by creating legal certainty ourselves.
Most people will always want to be treated close to home. However, there will always be patients who wish to travel to another Member State for treatment, for whatever reason. If patients do choose this option, we must make sure that the terms under which they do so are transparent and fair. We must make sure that they know how much they will be charged, what quality and safety standards they can expect and what rights they have if something goes wrong. This report addresses all these issues.
Let me be clear that this right for patients should in no way be detrimental to Member States’ ability to provide quality health care for all their citizens. This report does not tell Member States how they should organise their own health systems. It does not dictate what quality of care they should provide. In fact, it builds in safeguards for Member States to help protect their own national health systems, for example by choosing a system of prior authorisation in certain circumstances.
However, such prior authorisation must not be used to limit patient choice. Indeed, the increased availability of cross-border health care should in turn help stimulate national systems to provide increasingly better standards of health care themselves.
I look forward to the comments from colleagues in the debate which now follows."@en1
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