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EUC Report: Healthcare Professionals

My Lords, domestic healthcare has been high on the agenda of this House for the last six months or so. As with most other policies, there is a European dimension. This afternoon I would like to draw the House's attention to the mobility of healthcare professionals within the EU. I am sure that noble Lords will be aware of the debate that took place in the House on 8 September 2011 concerning the disparities between EEA and non-EEA healthcare professionals, as moved by the noble Viscount, Lord Bridgeman—who subsequently joined my committee, I am very pleased to say. On 11 January 2012, a Question for Short Debate asked by the noble Lord, Lord Kakkar, touched on the mobility issues but also considered other EU measures such as the working time and clinical trials directives. Since its inception in 1948, the NHS has relied heavily on overseas-trained nurses and doctors to bolster its workforce. Their contribution has been significant and, since our accession to the European Union, what began with legal migration under the Commonwealth has been superseded by legal migration from other European countries. We launched our inquiry into the mobility of healthcare professionals in May, shortly before the Commission published its Green Paper on revising the professional qualifications directive. Our report was published last October and considered the operation of the directive as it relates to the healthcare professions that are covered by its system of automatic recognition. The report not only made a number of recommendations to the Government but acted as our response to the Commission's Green Paper consultation. From the outset, we supported the principle that the mobility of healthcare professionals can bring significant benefits to patients, professionals and the EU in general. None of our witnesses challenged this assumption. However, we also recognised that the current directive failed to command the confidence of patients and professionals. Major UK regulators including the General Medical Council and the Nursing and Midwifery Council expressed strong concerns in their evidence to us that discrepancies in the current system forced them to admit individuals who did not meet the standards otherwise required of UK or non-EEA professionals, thereby putting patients at potentially serious risk. Incidents related to the failures of the directive have been statistically low. However, high-profile examples have had fatal results. This has undermined confidence in the directive and led to fears in some quarters that mobility has been prioritised over patient safety. We examined the minimum training requirements contained in the current directive and concluded that they were out of date and badly in need of updating in order to reflect modern practice. We also considered whether there should be more stringent requirements for professionals to undertake continuing professional development, and whether a more competency- based approach to training and professional development should be adopted. We examined how fitness-to- practice information was shared between competent authorities in each member state, and we were alarmed to hear that competent authorities often fail to share information and that in some member states there are a plethora of different competent authorities, causing added confusion. We concluded that the use of existing mechanisms such as the internal market information system needed to be enhanced and become more routine, representing a simpler and more cost-effective way of improving information-sharing than the Commission's favoured option of introducing a European professional card. Communication between patients and healthcare professionals is vital, and everybody agreed that professionals must be able to communicate effectively in the language of the host member state. We believe that the directive fails to ensure this and needs to be clarified so that language testing is permitted at the point of registration if deemed necessary for patient safety by the relevant regulator. In the report's conclusion we reached the view that encouraging mobility should never be at the expense of patient safety and that this must be the overriding concern in all circumstances. We believe that the current directive strikes the wrong balance and therefore welcome the Commission's review, and we call on all parties, including the Government, to act quickly to ensure that serious failings in the current regime, which places patients at unacceptable risk, are remedied. Such changes would not represent a barrier to free movement but would instead strengthen it by rebuilding confidence. The Government's response was published on 19 December 2011, the same day as the Commission's proposal for a revised directive. There is clearly a lot of common ground between our views and the Government's views on the issues that we dealt with in our report. The Commission's proposal to revise the directive goes some way to remedying the shortcomings in the original directive that we identified in our report. An alert mechanism will be introduced so that regulatory bodies must warn each other if, for example, a doctor or nurse has been struck off or suspended from a register and attempts to register in another member state. The minimum training requirements for healthcare professionals will also be updated to reflect modern practices, and regulatory bodies will be able to check the language skills of health professionals. However, there is some confusion here. On the one hand, the GMC says that it is not currently allowed to systematically test language skills. On the other hand, the Commission says that it is. The situation is clearly ambiguous and we call on the Government and the Commission to work together to achieve what seems to be a common goal: to achieve clarity on this crucial issue. The Government's proposed amendments to the Medical Act should happen in accord with any changes agreed to the EU directive in this area. We also welcome the proposed exemption of healthcare professionals from the partial access provisions, in the interests of patient safety. We note that with the support of the relevant professional bodies, the Government are intending to push for veterinary surgeons and architects to be exempted. However, we also note that the Commission's proposal contains no reference to the importance of continuing professional development. We reiterate our report's recommendation that it should include an obligation on member states to require healthcare professionals to undertake CPD, but without being too prescriptive, and leaving the detail to each member state's competent authorities. Although we remain to be convinced of the merits of the professional card, we note that the proposal seems to suggest that the introduction of professional cards for different professions will not be mandatory. Although UK regulators have welcomed the introduction of an alert mechanism, they have questioned why it should apply only to the automatically recognised professions and not to the general professions. They also stress that the mechanism should flag up any conditions, restrictions or limitations placed on an individual's right to practice, rather than just removals from registers. We share their concerns in this regard. Data protection concerns have been raised in regard to the proposed alert mechanism, including by the European data protection supervisor. We touched on that in our report and note that the Government are already alive to this issue. We hope that they can successfully address these concerns during the negotiations, particularly in the context of the separate proposals for a revised data protection directive. We have not yet received the Commission's response. However, since the publication of our report I have participated in two conferences in Brussels which have included health regulators from across Europe who are working closely together on the proposals for a revised directive. During each event, interest in and awareness of our report was high. It therefore provided an excellent opportunity to reinforce the EU Committee's views on this matter. I would also say that there was a good deal of consensus around the table among healthcare professionals from across the EU. I also had the pleasure of hosting a roundtable meeting with senior representatives of all the automatically recognised professionals in the UK—that is, doctors, nurses, midwives, dentists, pharmacists, vets and architects. I hosted this event on 26 January and their views have helped to inform the committee's ongoing scrutiny of the Commission's proposal. We know that the Government have already worked closely with UK regulators in an effort to reflect their concerns during the negotiations on the proposal, which we commend. In conclusion, I hope that my remarks demonstrate that the impact of the committee's work in this area, as well as its proactive stakeholder engagement, has been successful and resulted in an ongoing scrutiny rather than, as it were, writing a report and leaving it on the shelf. The committee hopes that all parties to the negotiations on the revised directive, which are likely to continue until the end of this year, will strive to achieve real and practical improvements to the draft provisions. I look forward to hearing from other noble Lords, and of course from the noble Earl, Lord Howe, on behalf of the Government regarding this important matter. I beg to move.