Calm before the storm: #Brexit and the small matter of a personalised health-care conference…

Yes, Brexit - the gift that keeps on giving - enters yet another round next week, with an emergency summit in Brussels to discuss the possibility (well, probability) of a further extension to the whole seemingly interminable process.

The latest as we write this update is that European Council President Donald Tusk seems to have proposed a 12-month "flexible" extension to the UK in respect of its leaving date.

This would supersede the one already missed (29 March) and the one coming up fast (next Friday, 12 April). If British Prime Minister Theresa May- currently in talks with opposition leader Jeremy Corbyn- gets a withdrawal deal through parliament before the summit, then the UK could leave sooner, if the other 27 member states agree to all of it, unanimously.

The UK’s Attorney General Geoffrey Cox has been quoted this morning as saying that if the May-Corbyn talks fail, the delay is "likely to be a long one”.

Previously, the Chancellor Philip Hammond said he expects Brussels to insist on a lengthy delay and added that a public vote to approve a final deal is "a perfectly credible proposition”.

Whatever happens next, there’s no denying the sense of frustration among the British population, many of whom are fed up with the whole process and some of whom would gladly take a no-deal scenario just to get the whole thing over with.

The House of Commons doesn’t want that - and has said so clearly - and neither does the EU. But nerves are getting frayed.

This probably won’t be helped by the EU’s announcement earlier in the week that it will immediately introduce customs checks and import duties if Britain crashes out next Friday.

This would affect incoming goods as soon as Britain left the bloc, according to economic and tax commissioner Pierre Moscovici.

The Daily Mail, predictably, seized on this in shock! horror! fashion with its 'Surrender your sausages!' headline.

It wrote that: “The EU will force British holidaymakers to hand over home comforts like pasties, cheese and ham if they try to take them to Europe after a No Deal Brexit,” under disease control laws.

“They would come into effect immediately and apply to products of animal origin,” wrote the Mail, adding that “it would leave Brits facing a choice between leaving them behind or smuggling.”

Where’s Jack Sparrow when you need him?

Conference starts this week 

So, against this backdrop, EAPM will sit on the sidelines in Brussels, but it won’t be twiddling its thumbs. On the contrary, Monday and Tuesday (8-9) will see the Alliance hold its 7th annual presidency conference at the University Foundation. Please find attached the Presidency Conference agenda.

The event is entitled Forward as one: Health Care Innovation and the need for policymaker engagement, and aims to allow for a bridge to legislators and others in order to further build on the developments that the EAPM has helped to architect in various policy areas.

As ever, it is intended as a one-stop shop, as stakeholders from every discipline and every member state come together to forge the way ahead.

Once again it will be attended by large numbers of industry professionals, government regulators, patients, academia, researchers, healthcare journalists and more geared towards driving insights into action.

Prior to the main conference on the Tuesday (9 April), the Alliance will also host a high-level event on lung-cancer screening at the same venue in coalition with the European Respiratory Society, and the European Society of Radiology, entitled  “Saving Lives, Cutting Costs”.

Speaking ahead of the innovation event, EAPM’s Executive Director Denis Horgan said: “We will gather to talk about innovation. Smart innovation in our health-care systems.

“We all know that there is plenty of great science in Europe, brilliant research and quality innovation, especially in healthcare. The question is how to fully integrate this into national healthcare systems.”

Horgan pointed out that personalised medicine is a growing trend, although a survey not so long ago show suggested that only 40% of patients are aware of such targeted therapies.

Possibly worse, only 11% had discussed such options with their doctor.

So, despite its proven efficacy in certain areas and vast potential in others, it remains a struggle to embed innovative personalised medicine into the EU’s health-care systems.

This is not helped by the fact that health care is a member state competence under the treaties, so the European Parliament and Commission can only do so much.

Horgan explained that among the barriers to integrating innovation into the lives of Europe’s hundreds of millions of citizens are a lack of education and awareness, a need for greater patient empowerment, the recognition of the value of personalised medicine, the collection, storage and sharing of vital research data, and problems with access to care.

Plenty to talk about, then.

University challenge and health-care qualifications 

The vice-chancellors of the famous universities of Oxford and Cambridge are set to meet Research Commissioner Carlos Moedas to try to find a way to join existing collaboration models for research, such as those operating in Switzerland and Norway, in a post-Brexit Europe.

Also, it has emerged that the UK will continue to recognize European staff’s health and social care qualifications after Britain departs.

Health Secretary Matt Hancock revealed that this would affect up to 63,000 National Health Service staff plus 104,000 social care workers with EU qualifications.

He said: “My message to EU staff is clear…we all want you to feel valued and stay in the UK.”

According to Politico, Hancock’s department added that, after Brexit, people registering with “professional qualifications that are currently recognised automatically by UK regulators will continue to be recognized”.

Such professionals include doctors, nurses, dentists, pharmacists and midwives. Anybody without qualifications that are not recognised automatically will need their registration to be re-assessed.

On another note, via a policy document, Britain has told citizens living elsewhere in the EU that it is pushing for broader social security protections than the EU is planning to arrange. This will include continued healthcare rights. 

‘No concern over meds’

Back to Brussels and Commission Vice President Jyrki Katainen has looked to sought to reassure patients they will still have access to medicines and medical devices even in the event of a no-deal Brexit.

The Commission says it has very carefully monitored medicine stocks while working with pharmaceutical companies about no-deal requirements for more than two years. An official is quoted as saying: “We don’t have any specific concern for any medicine.”

Over in Dublin, German Chancellor Angela Merkel said she would try “until the last hour” to avoid a no-deal Brexit.

Ireland’s Taoiseach Leo Varadkar was playing host to the German leader, who added that she hoped “the intensive discussions ongoing in London” would mean that “Prime Minister Theresa May will have something to table to us on the basis of which we can continue to talk” at next week’s emergency EU summit.

Brexit calling, or calling Brexit?

Sorry to bang on yet further about the mess in Westminster but, if you like, you can get your Brexit questions sort-of answered by calling 00 800 67891011 from anywhere in Europe.

This will get you through, one hopes, to the Brussels-based Europe Direct Contact Centre which, last year, was contacted by 109,000 EU citizens at an average of some 200 calls every day.

Apparently, the amount of Brexit-related calls from January-March 2019 already equals the entire tally about the UK’s departure counted in the whole of 2018.

That certainly has a ring to it…

Presidency Conference agenda.