The Committee on the Environment, Public Health and
Food Safety adopted the own-initiative report by Piernicola
PEDICINI (EFDD, IT) on safer healthcare in Europe: improving
patient safety and fighting antimicrobial resistance.
Members recalled that globally, 10 million people
would die every year because of antimicrobial resistance by
2050, and that resistance to antibiotics that were commonly used to
treat causative bacteria was at least 25 % or more in several
Member States.
In this context, Members set out the state of play on
the Council’s recommendations on patient safety and the
Commission’s second implementation report on the matter
(please see the summaries set out in procedure reference 2013/2022(INI)).
Members feedback and proposals for improvements include the
following:
- ensure that health systems and healthcare facilities
were managed independently of political choices, and that managers
were appointed on the basis of merit and not of political
affiliation;
- ensure basic training of all healthcare personnel,
even those who were not in direct contact with
patients;
- ensure the appropriate and up-to-date training of
doctors and other healthcare professionals, as well as the exchange
of best practices;
- ensure the adoption of a multidisciplinary approach in
medical treatments;
- lighten the burden on healthcare facilities by
promoting care and medical treatment at home;
- ensure that medical professionals inform patients when
a medicine was used off-label and provide patients with information
on the potential risks in order to enable them to give informed
consent;
- promote information campaigns for patients concerning
the risks of adverse events in the healthcare system and concerning
possible preventive measures, starting with basic hygiene measures,
and launch awareness-raising campaigns;
- step up hygiene precautions, making greater use of
hygiene specialists to monitor all aspects of health and hygiene
relating to healthcare facilities, patients and relations between
patients and outside ‘guests’;
- develop EU guidance for patients’ involvement in
patient safety strategies.
With regard to the need to fight against
antimicrobial resistance, Members proposed the following
measures:
- remind physicians of the paramount importance of
ensuring that the prescription of antibiotics for treatment
was appropriate and responsible;
- ensure that, whenever possible, appropriate
microbiological diagnosis was systematically performed before
prescribing antibiotics;
- regulate the prescription of antibiotics for
treatment;
- encourage the development of new revenue models
whereby economic returns for companies were de-linked from
prescribed volumes of antibiotics, and at the same time, while
encouraging pharmaceutical innovation;
- regulate the sale and distribution of
antibiotics;
- intensify infection control, in particular from a
cross-border perspective, and especially by carefully monitoring
potential carriage of multidrug-resistant bacteria;
- improve safety standards, especially for medical
devices that are resistant to sterilisation (e.g.
endoscopes);
- launch awareness campaigns targeting a wide
audience
- increase public funding and create new academic
positions to focus on exploring and validating new approaches for
treating bacterial infections.
The committee also made a series of recommendations
regarding antibiotic use in veterinary medicine in general and in
husbandry in particular.
It went on to make recommendations on collaborative
approaches within the EU, calling on Member States to cooperate on
defining minimum patient safety standards and indicators for safety
and quality of healthcare at the EU level. The Commission and the
Member States were asked to further engage in a dialogue with
all stakeholders and develop a coordinated, comprehensive and
sustainable EU strategy for patient safety.
They were also asked to optimise EU partnerships
between academia and the pharmaceutical industry, and Members
encouraged pharmaceutical companies, governments and academia to
contribute with their best assets (infrastructure, compounds, ideas
and financial resources) to ground-breaking fundamental research
and pre-competitive joint projects. The EU should take part in any
global initiative aimed at improving ways of combating antibiotic
resistance.
Lastly, Members stressed
that antimicrobial resistance had become a serious problem
that needed to be urgently tackled. It called on the Commission to
consider proposing legislation on the prudent use of antibiotics if
little or no progress had been made in Member States within five
years of the publication of these recommendations.