Europe’s healthcare system is undergoing a revolution, with e-health leading the way. Advances in the ICT industry mean knowledge can move quickly and services can be offered more efficiently and cheaply, but guaranteeing the privacy of patient information is a key challenge. And for the time being citizens can expect to be frustrated in their efforts to have full access to a range of health services across Europe, due to a European Council of Ministers decision to reject plans for a directive making it easier for Europeans to access health services in different member states.

Healthcare standards should be at the levels of the best performers to assist social cohesion and ease the mobility of workers – this would cut costs and help the EU to pay the expense of demographic ageing. The cost of medicine to end-users too need to be controlled, with access to quality generic medicines a priority – the new trend of pharmaceutical companies to invest less massively in blockbuster drugs and more in developing products that can be modified to have a wider range of applications should spell good news in the drive for lest costly care.