The new EU healthcare rights directive: greater uniformity?

On 9th March 2011 the new EU Directive on Patients' Rights in Cross-border Healthcare was adopted. This article explores its implications for the delivery of health care in the UK. It notes that the final version of the Directive provides much greater discretion to member states to control access to resources than was suggested in early drafts of the Directive. It explores the situations in which care can be subject to prior authorization and suggests that perhaps the greatest long-term impact of the Directive will not be in patient mobility as such but rather in relation to its impact on broader standard setting across the EU.