MEP Peter Agius (EPP, Malta) says the Cross-Border Healthcare Directive was a good idea in theory, but is not working as effectively as it should in practice. Speaking in Brussels during a meeting of the European Parliament’s Health Committee, he said it was important to ensure that patients can make better use of this right.
Setting out his reasoning, he said the Cross-Border Healthcare Directive has not been working effectively in practice, despite concerns from member states during its negotiation about the potential cost. However, a European Parliament Research Service study based on figures reported by member states shows that the directive costs just 0.004% of national health budgets.
He described the cost as negligible and said this should encourage greater ambition in using the directive. Drawing on his experience in Malta, where he has spoken to doctors and helped patients use the directive, he said there were two key issues that needed to be addressed.
First, the numbers tell their own story. He noted that Malta sent only 15 cases to the other 26 EU member states in 2021, despite sending thousands of people to the UK under its bilateral agreement with the NHS, even though the UK is now outside the EU. He said Malta’s existing bilateral agreement with the UK should also be sustained. He then raised concerns about how clinical disagreements between doctors should be handled.
“I speak for Malta specifically, where in some specialities you might have only one consultant in the whole country. Smaller member states simply don’t have the facilities that larger ones do,” the MEP argues. “So what happens if your consultant in Malta, Cyprus or elsewhere gives you no hope, but a doctor in another member state has a solution?”
MEP Agius says that an appeal mechanism is needed for exactly that situation — potentially built directly into the national health system — so that a patient can raise this possibility as a matter of urgency.
