People have always travelled within Europe for work and leisure, although never before with the current intensity. Now, however, they are travelling for many other reasons, including the quest for key services such as health care. Whatever the reason for travelling, one question they ask is "If I fall ill, will the health care I receive be of a high standard?" This book examines, for the first time, the systems that have been put in place in all of the European Union's 27 Member States. The picture it paints is mixed. Some have well developed systems, setting standards based on the best available evidence, monitoring the care provided, and taking action where it falls short. Others need to overcome significant obstacles.

What are public health services? Countries across Europe understand what they are or what they should include differently. This study describes the experiences of nine countries detailing the ways they have opted to organize and finance public health services and train and employ their public health workforce. It covers England France Germany Italy the Netherlands Slovenia Sweden Poland and the Republic of Moldova and aims to give insights into current practice that will support decision-makers in their efforts to strengthen public health capacities and services. Each country chapter captures the historical background of public health services and the context in which they operate; sets out the main organizational structures; assesses the sources of public health financing and how it is allocated; explains the training and employment of the public health workforce; and analyses existing frameworks for quality and performance assessment. The study reveals a wide range of experience and variation across Europe and clearly illustrates two fundamentally different approaches to public health services: integration with curative health services (as in Slovenia or Sweden) or organization and provision through a separate parallel structure (Republic of Moldova). The case studies explore the context that explain this divergence and its implications. This study is the result of close collaboration between the European Observatory on Health Systems and Policies and the WHO Regional Office for Europe Division of Health Systems and Public Health. It accompanies two other Observatory publications Organization and financing of public health services in Europe and The role of public health organizations in addressing public health problems in Europe: the case of obesity alcohol and antimicrobial resistance (both forthcoming).

The European Union is becoming increasingly involved in health policy. The Treaties of Maastricht and Amsterdam require the EU to consider health issues in all that it does. Even though the Union has no direct involvement in the delivery of health services its range of responsibilities, including the ramifications for health of the Single European Market, make it a key player. This is the first major academic book solely devoted to EU health and health-related policy.

There is no European Union health system but there is an EU health policy. The EU affects the health of its citizens, the health of people around the world, and the operation and finance of its Member States' healthcare systems in many ways, mostly for the better, and often in ways that are poorly understood. This book, a completely revised second edition of our previous volume on the subject, maps out the nature of EU health policies, their logic and reason for being, and their potential to affect the health of Europeans for the better. It is written in the belief that understanding the breadth and diversity of EU health policies, and the distinctive institutional structure that explains them, will improve our collective abilities to make policy for health in any sphere, from food to healthcare services and from occupational safety to international trade. Above all, we hope that this book makes it impossible to deny the scale and often indirect and positive impact of EU health policy. EU health policies extend far beyond the Public Health Article 168, from the environmental, social policy and consumer protection policies discussed alongside it in chapter 3, to the extensive internal market laws that have made so much beneficial EU regulatory policy, discussed in chapter 4, to the ambitious fiscal governance agenda discussed in chapter 5, which has increasingly developed a health focus. Across a broad sweep of policies from RescEU's civil protection to the regulation of pharmacies, the EU is omnipresent in health and health policy. It should be understood as such. The question is not whether we want an EU health policy, for EU health policy is inevitable. It is how it should be made and for what ends.

First published in 1999, this volume aims to describe and analyse the experience of cost containment in Europe over the last fifteen years in order to understand that experience and to determine, as best we can, which methods were successful and which were not. Part I provides an overview of healthcare in the European Union, an overview of recent expenditure trends. Part II complements the first, examining in detail cost containment policies in each EU Member State. The country-based chapters refer to developments up to mid-1997.

The book examines the ways that the successful health lobbies and member states work, identifies weaknesses, and emphasizes the challenge to health policymakers.

EU Health Systems and Distributive Justice uses theories of distributive justice to examine tensions created by the application of the Internal Market rules to the provision of health care services within the European Union. Using the concepts and principles embedded in the theories of egalitarianism and libertarianism, this book analyses the impact of the Internal Market rules on common values and principles shared by European health systems, such as universality, accessibility, equity and solidarity. This analysis is conducted using the specific issue of cross-border health care. This book makes innovative contributions to the study of the relationship between EU health systems and the Internal Market – it encompasses the analysis of all principles recognised by EU institutions as guiding principles of European health systems; it integrates human rights law and practice into the discussion of the EU Court of Justice’s approach to patient mobility cases; and it assesses the potential impact of the Internal Market over EU health systems through the lens of distributive justice, looking at the underlying principles of these systems that are mostly concerned with social justice. Ultimately, this is not a book on EU law and health care, but it is a book on distributive justice, health care and the principles and policies guiding European health systems.