On September 8th, 2020, the members of the European association of Competent Authorities of healthcare professions, EurHeCA, met online. This meeting enabled to provide an update on the consequences of the health and economic crisis following the COVID-19 pandemic in each of the countries and for the different professions represented within the association.
The main objective of this online meeting was to discuss the evaluation of the implementation of the Directive on the Recognition of Professional Qualifications in the Member states, published by the European Commission in May 2020.
The members of the association continued the discussions started at the previous meeting on June 3rd, 2020 and adopted their position on this evaluation.
EurHeCA would like to highlight the following elements:
- The evaluation presented by the European Commission is based on quantitative data. We believe that an assessment of the quality and objectives of the provisions of the Directive is also necessary. Based on the exchanges we have between the members of our association, we have a clear overview of the difficulties raised by the Directive on the Recognition of Professional Qualifications as implemented: difficulties with the alert mechanism in the Member States and knowledge of the language of the host country among others.
- Patient safety must be the priority regarding the mobility of healthcare professional. This specificity of healthcare professions should also be recognized through the implementation of the Directive on the setting up of Proportionality test before adoption of new regulation of professions in the Member States.
The members of the association will therefore promote this position in their interactions with European decision-makers in the coming weeks. Another meeting is scheduled for December 2020 to continue to deepen discussions on this topic but also on other points of interest for EurHeCA at European level such as the launch of the EU4Health programme.
Position paper - EurHeCA
