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#EAPM - Commission acts to lift burdensome rules on health-care workers

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MEPs have been debating a European Commission proposal to introduce a proportionality test when regulating certain professions, which include healthcare professionals, or HCPs, writes European Alliance for Personalised Medicine (EAPM)  Executive Director Denis Horgan.

Inevitably, with health care (and, in this case, regulation of professionals) being a member state competence, the proposal initially met with some opposition in certain EU countries, notably Germany, Austria, France, Romania and Hungary, as well as within the European Parliament itself.

However, Parliament and the Council managed to agree that the proposed directive should apply to jobs coming under the professional qualifications directive.

The gist of the proposal is the Commission’s wish to make sure that, when Member States regulate professions, the latter do not employ disproportionate and burdensome rules restricting professionals moving between EU countries.

To perform regulated professions, workers have to obtain specific qualifications or a specific title.

Different requirements across the EU may make it difficult for qualified professionals to apply for vacancies in other member states.

And according to the Commission, it is often difficult to get information on what conditions these professionals have to comply with to apply for a job in another country.

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The Commission has stated that the freedom to choose an occupation is a fundamental right and that national rules “organizing access to regulated professions should not constitute any unjustified and disproportionate obstacle to the exercise of those fundamental rights”.

It also notes that it falls within the member states’ gift to decide whether and how to regulate a profession, albeit under the principles of non-discrimination and proportionality.

The principle of proportionality ensures that regulations should be applied in a non-discriminatory manner; be justified by public interest objectives; be suitable for securing the attainment of the objective which they pursue; and not go beyond what is necessary in order to attain it.

Previously, the Commission introduced a process under which member states had to carry out a screening of all their legislation on all professions regulated in their country.

It has also been recognized that account should be taken of the fact that technological developments “may reduce the asymmetry of information between consumers and professionals”. In view of the speed of technological change and scientific progress, up-dates in access requirements may be of particular importance for a number of professions.

The European Alliance for Personalised Medicine is currently in ongoing discussions in the European Parliament with its STEPs group of MEPs on this complex topic.

STEPs stands for Specialised Treatment for Europe’s Patients and the group features a host of MEPs focused on embedding personalised medicine into EU health-care systems.

EAPM and the MEPs believe that education is important too, irrespective of which member state.

Certainly in health care, and particularly in personalised medicine, EAPM has long believed that ongoing training of HCPs is vital. It has called upon the EU to support the development of a Europe-wide education and training of healthcare professionals’ curriculum for the personalised medicine era.

The EU, says EAPM, should facilitate the development of an Education and Training Strategy for HCPs in personalised medicine.

The way in which health care is delivered to the patient is changing and it is changing fast. Advances in personalised medicine must fundamentally alter the scope, content and manner in which HCPs are educated.

The Alliance says that education of HCPs in personalised medicine must be placed on the policy and political agenda as a priority and matter of urgency. If this fails to occur the result will be a scarcity of the healthcare professional capital needed to support its implementation to the detriment of patients across Europe.

EAPM has identified priority areas that it believes the EU must comprehensively address in order to further build upon the knowledge of HCPs and the potential of personalised medicine for European citizens.

Innovative, compatible and interdisciplinary educational strategies should be supported to systematically implement and enable personalised medicine into patient care. The aim is to provide HCPs with the required knowledge and information to exploit genetic and genomic information for the benefit of their patients.

minimum set of core competencies that relate to understanding the basic mechanisms underpinning the concept of personalised medicine, necessary for HCPs to practice personalised medicine effectively, must be established.

These must be incorporated and adapted into introductory, vocational, undergraduate and PCD levels of learning.

Because of the breathtaking pace of science in health care, much knowledge is becoming

incomplete quickly, or worse, outdated.

HCPs need to have professional competence that reflects the latest advances and discoveries in medical research and healthcare - allowing the right treatment for the right patient at the right time.

Unfortunately, at the moment, the level of competence of such professionals in the rapidly moving personalised medicine era is lagging behind technology. Continuing professional development must be put into place as a matter of urgency.

On top of this, there is a strong need for a central repository of information that can be accessed in real time by HCPs to discuss topics in real time with their patients.

And EAPM believes that a European body, such as a European Observatory on HCP education for personalised medicine, should be brought into play to coordinate and support all identified policy areas. It could facilitate data sharing, support the exchange of good practices and assist in identifying core competences for HCPs, together with the most appropriate educational tools.

Research into educational formats has suggested that traditional approaches, both online and  offline, such as lectures, are less effective than discussion-based and interactive formats.

To aid the processes, EAPM launched its (highly interactive) annual Summer School in Cascais, Portugal, in 2016. This was followed-up last year by a school in Bucharest, while this year’s training week will be held in Warsaw from 19-22 June.  Please see link to the Summer School in Poland which takes place on 19-22 June 2018.

Entitled New Horizons in Personalised Medicine it comes under EAPM’s TEACH banner (Training and Education for Advanced Clinicians and HCPs).

It is an ongoing initiative that aims to educate young doctors in the latest developments of personalised medicine.

The Summer School is aimed at HCPs aged 28-40. Its most important goal is to bring the young specialists up-to-date with the latest news and discoveries which, in the future, will help them to better understand their patients and thus select optimal therapies.

Across the four days, HCPs will attend lectures and workshops devoted to radiology, oncology, surgical oncology, haematology, molecular biology, plus personalised medicine in combination with immunotherapy, colorectal cancer therapy and molecular diagnostics.

The school offers an opportunity to meet outstanding international specialists, who will be conducting classes for young guest specialists.

Once again, the faculty has been chosen from medical academic, clinical, communication and research specialists and will cover, among many topics outlined above, challenges and multidimensional implications in respect of personalised medicine.

Formats will include round tables, keynote speeches, plus detailed discussions on personalised medicine and its different perspectives.

The last two editions provided a highly interactive forum for sharing ideas for innovation, and practicing communication skills, and the third will follow suit.

The format allows attendees to enhance their knowledge of personalised medicine and its potential, as well as offering feedback about the priorities Europe should be zooming in on down the line.

Essentially, EAPM, its stakeholders and international affiliates believe that the issue of translational education of HCPs is a major one as the relentless march of science transforms health care.

It is clear that a great degree of up-skilling is already required and, to keep pace with the science, this absolutely must be ongoing.

The summer school initiative goes at least some way to addressing this important issue, and the model can form the basis for further progress across the EU.

To register for the Summer School, please click here. 

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EU Reporter publishes articles from a variety of outside sources which express a wide range of viewpoints. The positions taken in these articles are not necessarily those of EU Reporter.

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