International conference to discuss health tourism and rising costs of funding health care in the EU

Health tourism and the rising costs of funding health care and providing 'free at the point of delivery' healthcare are among the issues to be addressed at an international conference on Health Care in the EU.

Professor Erika Szyszczak of the School of Law at the University of Leicester is co-organising the international conference to be held 1 and 2 October 2009 at Radboud University Nijmegen, The Netherlands.

Professor Szyszczak has researched in this area and has spoken at a number of major international conferences. She argues that:

"Patients' expectations of medical treatment continue to grow, creating new pressures for social security systems. This has led patients to travel abroad for treatment and encouraged governments to experiment with new private health care systems to accommodate a growing market in transnational health care. The European Court of Justice in Luxembourg has recognised patients' rights to health care in another Member State of the EU and the economic right to free movement is increasingly seen as a fundamental right. "

"This international conference looks at the impact of EU internal market and competition law on the organisation of health care systems of the Member States of the EU."

The first session addresses the proposed EC Commission Directive on Patients' Rights, while the second session looks at the effects of internal market law and the effects of patients' rights on the financial structures of health care systems. The final session addresses a number of competition issues such as the use of state aid, PPF and the role of health care as a public service in increasingly competitive global markets.

http://www.le.ac.uk/la/celi/