Annual Report 2018

For early and quality care

Healthcare

EFA lungs
In 2018, we welcomed the European Commission proposal for a regulation on Health Technology Assessment (HTA), a legislation that will contribute to the setting of technology standards for patients accessing healthcare in Europe, and to advance EUnetHTA, an HTA cooperation framework of which EFA is Member. Together with Members we developed a position paper highlighting areas to improve within the HTA proposal, such as the need to improve the involvement of patients in HTA, so that we are consulted throughout the whole evaluation and decision process and not just ad hoc.

 

As active members of the #EU4Health campaign, we contributed to a joint statement: “Europe do More for Health!” signed by 15 organisations pinpointing seven actions the European Commission should plan for the Future of Europe. Collectively we communicated them throughout the year to refrain the European Commission from dismantling the Directorate General for Health and Food Safety in the next 2019-2024 mandate, which would imply the deletion of the health leadership and perspective from the common market.

 

We also participated in the European Patients Forum’s (EPF) first Nutrition Task force, launched in February 2018, because nutrition is an essential component of disease management. The resulting EPF Clinical Nutrition Guidelines and Summaries for Patients have specific chapters on food allergy and COPD.

Medicines

Medecines ClinicalTrials
Throughout 2018 we continued to represent allergy and airways disease patients at the European Medicines Agency Patients and Consumers Working Party (EMA PCWP), and at the EMA Digital Health Topic Group. Patient experts from EFA network took part in scientific working party meetings and were consulted on public information on medicines. We were also honoured to be elected as Chair of the Patients Access Partnership (PACT).

 

Europe is facing a vaccine hesitancy trend. To counter-balance the doubts, the European Commission launched a consultation on strengthened cooperation against vaccine preventable disease. EFA response focused on the recommendation of vaccination as a treatment against infections that can be fatal for people living with chronic diseases such asthma and COPD. EFA is the patient representative of the Steering Group on Influenza Vaccination, a joint action co-chaired by Françoise Grossetête, Member of the European Parliament. In 2018, we launched a 10-point Manifesto calling the EU for more action to increase seasonal influenza vaccination coverage rates in Europe. http://eufightingflu.com/

Research

telephone
EFA’s mandate in the Scientific Panel for Health (SPH) under the EU Research Programme Horizon 2020 was renewed in 2018. We contributed to the development of the main SPH output ‘Better Research for Better Health’, science led vision for EU, outlining how Europe can become a leader, and better organise health research based on the needs of citizens and patients, and ensure the use of the results. We also co-chaired the Panel’s workshop Impact of health research for society.