Brussels, 02/05/2005 (Agence Europe) - With the adoption, on 28 April in Brussels, of the report by Milan Cabrnoch (EPP-ED, Czech) on modernisation of social protection and the development of quality healthcare, the European Parliament supports the Commission's approach aimed at developing quality health care and long-term care.
The Parliament thus: - stresses that every individual must be able to select the health care system and long-term care of his/her choice throughout Europe and calls for harmonised data collection, especially to allow citizens to be correctly informed on health care policies in other Member States; - invites the Spring Summit 2006 to finalise an integrated framework in the field of social protection, in order to rationalise use of the “open method of coordination” and to adopt a single list of common objectives in the fields of social insertion, pensions, health care and long-term care; - calls on Member States to clearly set out three fundamental objectives - universal access independent of income or wealth, high quality and long-term financial sustainability and universal access to care without undue waiting lists; - recognises that EU health care systems are faced with common challenges, mainly due to technical and medical progress, to which must be added increased cost and population ageing; - expresses concern about the fact that, in many Member States, there is an increasing lack of well-trained doctors, medical and care personnel and therefore calls on Member States to promote the training and further training of volunteers and qualified employees in this area, and also to develop equipment and new medical technologies; - and invites the Commission and Member States to take better account of the health of women and calls on the Commission to present a new report on the health situation of women in the EU.