European health community calls on the EU and UK to prioritise patients as crunch Article 50 decision approaches

Today a group of organisations including FEAM and representing academies of medicine, patients, healthcare professionals, and the health care industry have called on the EU and UK to prioritise patients in the Brexit negotiations.

To coincide with a meeting of EU Health Ministers in Brussels, this policy statement comes just one week ahead of the crunch European Council meeting where negotiators will decide if the Article 50 negotiations can move beyond ‘phase 1’.

The document outlines five priorities, which the group says will ‘determine the risk in Brexit’s impact on patients and public health across Europe’.

These priorities are:

• Bring close cooperation between the EU and UK on the regulation of medicines and medical technologies, to ensure that UK and EU patients will continue to have access to life-saving medicines and medical technologies.
• Establish a common framework for collaboration in research and information sharing between the EU27 and the UK.
• Ensure that there are continued reciprocal healthcare arrangements between the EU and UK.
• Develop strong coordination between the EU and UK on public health, including in pandemic preparation and disease prevention programmes.
• Ensure EU and UK health professionals continue to benefit from mutually beneficial training and education opportunities, with automatic recognition of qualifications

Read the joint statement here

Read the press release here

7 December 2017