Cross-border Healthcare
for Children & Adolescents with Cancer
Every child and adolescent with cancer has an equal right to access state-of-the-art treatment and care wherever they live. Collaboration and cross border healthcare are crucial in paediatric oncology, as not all treatment modalities can, or need to, be available in every European country. However, every child and adolescent must have access to all treatment, diagnosis, and care they need, wherever this is available.
Why does cross-border healthcare matter?
Childhood and adolescent cancers are rare, and some treatments, technologies and specialised expertise cannot realistically be available in every European country. But that should never determine what care a child can access. Cross-border healthcare and international collaboration can help ensure that every child has access to the expertise they need, whether this is available close to home or requires collaboration across borders.
What do we mean when we say cross-border healthcare?
As it is mentioned in chapter 10 in the European Standards of Care for Children and Adolescents with Cancer, cross-border healthcare is not limited to travelling abroad for treatment. International collaboration can support the development, delivery and improvement of care for children and adolescence with cancer across Europe. Examples of the international collaboration include:
- Developing treatment protocols
- Researching new treatment modalities, medicines, and their outcomes (including acute toxicities and late effects).
- Educating Healthcare Professionals
- Providing advanced diagnostics
- Evaluating complex patients in expert tumour boards
- Providing highly specialised care (e.g., proton irradiation, CAR-T, experimental therapy)
- Researching and collaborating on long-term follow-up care
Available Resources
- European Standards of Care for Children and Adolescents with Cancer – Cross-border healthcare chapter (ch.10): One of the chapters of the European standards of care for children and adolescents with cancer, focusing on cross-border healthcare and international collaboration in paediatric oncology. It provides recommendations in standards for ensuring access to appropriate treatment, diagnosis in care across borders for children and adolescents with cancer.
- EU Cross-border Healthcare Directive (CBHC Directive): Provides the EU framework for patients rights when accessing healthcare in another EU country, including information on access to healthcare abroad and reimbursement for care received in another EU country.
- Joint Paper: Recommendations for the modernisation of EU rules on cross-border access to healthcare
A joint CCI Europe and SIOP Europe policy paper setting out recommendations to improve cross-border access to healthcare for children and adolescents with cancer, addressing barriers to accessing specialised diagnosis, treatment and care across Europe.
- ERN PaedCan: An EU initiative that brings national health systems and specialised healthcare professionals together to reduce inequalities in childhood cancer survival. It supports high-quality, accessible and cost-effective cross border healthcare for children and adolescents with cancer, regardless of where they live.
- EU Draft Report with recommendations to the Commission on Modernised rules for patients’ rights in cross-border healthcare