BMA welcomes trade agreement decision

  Public healthcare services should be excluded from an international trade agreement, an influential EP (European Parliament) committee has recommended. The vote by the EP’s INTA (international trade) committee supports the BMA view on the potential risks to the NHS posed by such agreements. MEPs said that ‘clear and explicit exclusions’ are required to ensure that public healthcare and other sensitive sectors should be outside of the scope of the TiSA (trade in services agreement). TiSA is one of several trade agreements on which the EU is negotiating, and is an international treaty between 23 members of the World Trade Organisation, including Europe. It is aimed at opening up markets for services including banking and transport. BMA council chair Mark Porter (pictured) wrote to MEPs ahead of this week’s vote. In his letter, Dr Porter details BMA ‘concerns about the potential for the TiSA to threaten the UK NHS’s ability to provide high-quality healthcare to all, regardless of wealth, by facilitating its further commercialisation and thereby obstructing potential health reforms in the UK designed to enable the better integration of services’. Last summer, the EP also recommended that public services — including health — be excluded from the scope of the TTIP (the transatlantic trade and investment partnership), which is a similar trade deal between the EU and the USA. The INTA report is now expected to pass before ...
Source: BMA News - Category: UK Health Source Type: news