Better Screening For EU Medics, Demands MEP

A European Parliament committee has met to discuss the registration process of medics when they leave one EU country to work in another member state. Emma McClarkin, East Midlands Conservative MEP, believes the current system is dangerously flawed.

Under the current EU Professional Qualifications Directive which regulates the movement of medical professionals across the European Union many UK staff have found they have been denied work permits despite possessing the necessary qualifications.

MEP McClarkin was shocked to hear in the committee meeting that a UK doctor, whose qualifications fully complied with the EU Directive, was told by Spanish Authorities that his authorisation to work in Spain would take at least two years. Miss McClarkin argues that this shows how inefficient the current system is as the Directive dictates that authorisation should be granted or denied within a maximum of four months.

Miss McClarkin also points to the potentially lethal consequences of not having a properly regulated approach to reviewing medical qualifications. She provides the example of the recent tragic revelation in Britain in which a German doctor unlawfully killed a 70-year-old patient David Gray in Cambridgeshire by administering an overdose. Dr Daniel Ubani had been refused to work in one area of the UK and yet permitted in another due to a lack of standard procedure in reviewing qualifications which the EU was meant to have harmonised and regulated. The judge in this case called for the EU to review their recognition of doctors, as have the General Medical Council and Royal College of GPs, and Emma McClarkin is acting on their demands.

The East Midlands MEP believes that the European Parliament should implement an EU Heath Card for all medical professionals across the EU to harmonise the recognition of medical qualifications. McClarkin considers this to be a crucial step in allowing swifter authorisation of fully qualified medical professionals and a bar to those who are not qualified enough to practise medicine abroad.