Patients with Passports and Globalisation: A Critical Time for Law, Ethics and Regulation

Patient mobility can be seen as giving rise to considerable global opportunities but also raises global challenges. It may facilitate quicker treatment as when patients use EU law to bypass NHS waiting lists, it may enable patients to have a broader range of cheaper treatments in other countries such as cosmetic surgery or dental treatment. At the same time seeking treatment in other nation states may enable patients to bypass legal restrictions in their home member state- such as prohibitions on organ selling and commercial surrogacy.

Patient tourism gives rise to major questions of patient safety and of the quality of health care and the consequences if treatment abroad goes wrong and it is the home member state and its health care system which is left to bear the cost of dealing with the damage caused. It raises questions of ethics both in terms of legitimacy of procedures but also the broader inequities and relationship between high and low economically advantaged countries.