European Public Services Briefing 3: A Single European Market in Healthcare: The impact of European Union policy on national healthcare provision, Andy Morton.

Examines the recent Cross Border Healthcare Directive, the role of the European Court of Justice and the ‘Europeanisation of Healthcare’. The introduction of EU law into healthcare presents many problems. The most pressing being that EU institutions have sought to apply the ‘economic’ rights enshrined in the EU Treaty’s free movement law to national healthcare systems, like Britain’s NHS, that are essentially ‘social’ in purpose and aims. Expanding the ‘choices’ of users and providers of cross-border European healthcare is a further indulgence of the choice agenda that we’ve seen in Britain. This will only serve to further undermine social healthcare provision in the UK and the rest of Europe.