| As President of the Geriatric Medicine Section of the European Union Medical Specialties (GMS-UEMS) I am pleased to update members on Geriatrics matters within Europe.
Although many individuals and groups lobby the European Union the UEMS is the only official body inputting to the European Union on medical matters. Each specialty has a section with two members from each country. I am the BGS nominee and Ronnie Barber from Bristol is the JCHMT nominee.
French Membership
Many of us in the UK have cooperated over the years with our French colleagues. Unfortunately in France, unlike the UK, there is still some disagreement on recognition of the specialty with their official national bodies. This culminated this year in France almost being thrown out of UEMS but I am pleased to say that a compromise was achieved at the eleventh hour. On the Geriatric Medicine section we still have to achieve representation from French geriatricians rather than from General Practitioners who deal with older people as part of their work. (This is perhaps a warning of the need for close relationships between BGS members and GPs with a special interest in elderly care.)
Draft Directive and the Recognition of Professional Qualification
The EU is trying to consolidate its existing directives, but as a consequence this could have meant that very few medical specialties were recognised across Europe. This has led to a great deal of heated debate across Europe especially involving the BMA. Although it has not finally been agreed, it now seems that if any specialty is recognised in two fifths of the member states, that specialty’s professional qualification will be recognised across Europe. I am pleased to say that Geriatric Medicine is in this group and therefore qualifications in Geriatric Medicine are transferable within the EU. This makes it even more important that one of the aims of the Geriatric Medicine Section is to encourage training to comparable levels across all member states. With this in mind a pan-European curriculum and an accreditation system has been established (not dissimilar from that already existing in the UK).
Emergency Medicine
A joint multidisciplinary speciality committee has been established to try to develop emergency medicine as a new speciality. BGS members will, I am sure, be pleased that the Geriatric Medicine Section is taking an active part in these discussions.
Geriatric Medicine in member states
At each of our meetings one or two member states give a presentation on Geriatric Medicine within their country. These will be available on the Geriatric Medicine section website at www.uemsgeriatricmedicine.org and there will be a link from the BGS website.
European Union Geriatric Medicine Society
We are forging very close links between the EUGMS and the Geriatric Medicine section of the UEMS as although we are different organisations with different responsibilities our general aims are closely aligned. As reported in a previous newsletter, we were very pleased that the BGS took over the secretariat of the EUGMS.
New Health Data
The first set of EU Wide Health Data from the European Community Health Indicators Project is soon to be published. The aim is provide better and more comparable data to track development in health status of the EU population. There will also be comparable data for North America and Japan. The website is being developed over the next couple of months and the information can be found on http://europa.eu.int/comm/health/ph_information/dissemination/ echi/echi_en.htm
Ian R Hastie
Consultant and Senior Lecturer
St George’s Hospital, London
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