The Pharmaceutical Journal
Vol 279 No 7478 p551
17 November 2007

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Temporary registrants unavoidable

Little could be done to address regulators' concerns that a recent European Directive on professional mobility and temporary work might undermine patient safety, the Department of Health has said (PJ, 13 October 2007, p391).

In a report published this week on the response to consultation on introducing the new rules, the DoH says: “Many of the concerns raised by respondents were raised while the Directive was being negotiated and the resulting text is a compromise which was judged overall to be acceptable to the UK.

“We do not dismiss these concerns out of hand, and appreciate that they arise from genuine fears about the perceived opportunities for abuse of the new temporary registration regime. Some of the concerns are not amenable to mitigation as they are embedded in the wording of the Directive, which cannot be changed. Wherever it has been possible to strengthen patient safety safeguards, we have done so in the implementing regulations.”

The report indicates that the DoH rejected regulators’ concerns that the new requirement to register automatically health professionals who come from other EU countries to take temporary and occasional work in the UK posed a significant risk to patient safety.

However, the DoH says it will monitor implementation after October and raise issues with the European Commission if there appear to be operational problems.