65 research outputs found
How can knowledge brokering be advancedin a country’s health system?
No full textThis policy brief is one of a new series to meet the needs of policy-makers and health system managers. The aim is to develop key messages to support evidence-informed policy-making and the editors will continue to strengthen the series by working with authors to improve the consideration given to policy options and implementation
EU regulatory agencies and health protection
No full textThere is a fundamental contradiction at the core of health policy in the EU that makes it difficult to draw a line between EU and Member State responsibilities. This raises a number of difficult questions for policy makers and practitioners as they struggle to interpret both 'hard' and 'soft' laws at EU and Member State level and to reconcile tensions between economic and social imperatives in health care. The book addresses these complex questions by combining analysis of the underlying issues with carefully chosen case studies that illustrate how broader principles are played out in practice. Each chapter addresses a topical area in which there is considerable debate and potential uncertainty. The book thus offers a comprehensive discussion of a number of current and emerging governance issues in EU health policy, including regulatory, legal, 'new governance' and policy-making dynamics, and the application of the legal framework in these areas
How can health systems respond to population ageing?
No full textPolicy context: - All countries in Europe are experiencing an ageing of their populations, with a decrease in the number of people of working age per retiree. - Health trends among the elderly are mixed: severe disability is declining in some countries but increasing in others, while mild disability and chronic disease are generally increasing. - A declining working-age population will generate less income for health and pension systems. While expenditure on long-term care is certain to increase with the ageing of the population, the effects on health care expenditure are disputed. It is clear that if appropriate measures are implemented in time, population ageing does not inevitably lead to significantly higher health care expenditure. Policy options: Ensuring an adequate response from health systems. - A better coordination of care across health and social services, as well as across different levels of health care is seen as crucial. - As many older people remain in hospital inappropriately, a number of measures can be applied to allow for more treatments out of hospital. - Measures that reduce the risk of disease and promote the maintenance of function, confidence and engagement can support healthy ageing and ease the pressure on health care systems. Most notable are health promotion and disease prevention programmes that target the main causes of morbidity and premature mortality, in particular obesity and hypertension, as well as mental health. - These measures should include physical exercise and social involvement. The period from middle age onwards is particularly important for these activities and interventions. Building adequate systems of long-term care. Ensuring an appropriate combination of settings for long-term care that includes both formal and informal care is regarded as crucial. Supporting economic and social integration. - The decline in the share of the population of working age that will have to finance the health system can be addressed by measures that enable more older people to remain in the labour force. - Policies in support of healthy ageing also need to address the need for the continued social engagement of elderly people
Foreword
No full text© 2010, Cambridge University Press. It is a great pleasure to introduce this volume edited by Elias Mossialos, Govin Permanand, Rita Baeten and Tamara Hervey. It is a volume which continues the success of two earlier books commissioned by the Belgian government and published by Peter Lang Publishing Group in 2002. The topic of this contribution is a crucial one. Indeed, one can hardly imagine a subject closer to the lives of European Union (EU) citizens than an exploration of how EU law and policy has influenced, and will continue to influence, the health systems of the 27 Member States. This two-dimensional perspective means that this work will certainly be studied with great interest by all concerned with the functioning of the EU as well as by those wanting to discover more about national health systems. In principle, in light of Article 152 of the EC Treaty, national authorities are solely responsible for health care. Yet, though the Member States are free to decide how to deliver and organize health services, they must do so in compliance with other aspects of the Treaty, in particular with the fundamental freedoms and elements of competition law. Put differently, national health systems are not enclaves of national sovereignty insulated from European market integration. While EU legislators may not regulate health care as a means of promoting social cohesion, they may, however, enact legislation relating to those aspects affecting the establishment and functioning of the internal market. Given that national health systems are deeply rooted in social solidarity and welfare, the “constitutional asymmetry” (to borrow the term used by Fritz Scharpf)laid down in the Treaty gives rise to important tensions.status: Publishe
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EU pharmaceutical regulation ::the politics of policy-making /
No full text
Regulating under constraint : the case of EU pharmaceutical policy
No full textEThOS - Electronic Theses Online ServiceGBUnited Kingdo
Regulating under constraint: the case of EU pharmaceutical policy
No full textThis study is concerned with the making of regulatory policy for pharmaceuticals in the European Union. It proposes that an ad hoc development of Community competencies which does not amount to coherent strategy, far less a single medicines market, has resulted in a regulatory framework which favours the interests of industry. This is important on two fronts. First, it appears to run counter to contemporary research into EU regulation, which finds that consumer interests prevail over those of producers generally. Second, this pro-industry leaning seems not to be in keeping with member states' regulatory frameworks at home, which developed primarily as a means of protecting consumers' health (patients) following the Thalidomide tragedy. In providing support for this contention, rather than adopting an economic frame of analysis to assess - quantitatively - how the industry benefits, the study instead proposes a political perspective to understand how policy decisions have been taken. Specifically, the study examines how supranational policy for pharmaceuticals is made with the context of a clash between the European Community's free movement of goods principles and, via the principle of subsidiarity, the right of the member states to decide their national healthcare priorities. The agenda and roles of the European Commission, the member states, consumer interests, and the industry as the sector's four primary stakeholders are scrutinised within this context. The analysis concentrates on policy level interactions, examining how the political considerations at stake over medicines have affected policy outcomes in specific instances. It is shown that the incomplete development of competencies is not just a result of the policy clash, but also because different policy impetuses (and stakeholders) have spurred different aspects of the framework. This involves the development of a multi-faceted theoretical lens in order to capture the complexities of making pharmaceutical policy at EU level. This lens is based on the understanding that EU pharmaceutical policy is made within policy networks consisting of the four stakeholders. To gain a better grasp of the dynamics at play, these networks are tied to a regulatory policy-making framework known as the 'politics of policy'. It is a view which identifies different modes of regulatory politicking on the basis of the perceived costs and benefits the proposed intervention would bring to affected interests. Linked with wider European integration and policy-making theories, including neo-functionalism, intergovernmentalism and multi-level governance, this allows for a more complete perspective on how policy is made for the sector. Via its broader approach, therefore, the study provides insight into the complexities of making supranational policy for medicines, especially with regard to the need to balance conflicting interests within the harmonisation process
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