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UEHP launched the new edition of the European private hospitals Factbook in the European Parliament. Our Honorary President Dr Paul Garassus did a great job and now we have a comprehensive overview of the sector’s role in Europe, its achievements, and the challenges it will face in the coming years.

The Factbook of Private Hospitals reaffirms the sector’s commitment to quality, innovation, and responsibility, and invites all partners — policymakers, other providers, professionals, and patients — to work together in shaping a healthier, more equitable, and more resilient Europe for generations to come.

The Factbook is still making its way and we have received very positive reactions,  including invitations to present the document in detail to DG Santé and the OECD.

MEP Sebastião Bugalho, as the host of event, shared his perspective of the sector taking into consideration all the geostrategic developments we are witnessing. We can no longer view  health as merely a national policy because diseases have no borders and we live in a globalised world. That is why governments but also the European institutions must adopt a global approach in which planning plays a crucial role and in which mobilising all resources within health systems, both public and private,  becomes essential.

We are all aware of the competences set out in the Treaties, but the real issue is that European citizens experience difficulties in accessing care and have growing doubts about sustainability, while we face restricted markets, investment and activity rules that undermine free enterprise, and the imposition of economically inefficient and discriminatory pricing.

Issues such as the lack of healthcare professionals or the need for efficient funding are urgent.

Across Europe, shortages of healthcare professionals are putting the system under pressure. As the OECD states, we need improve job quality to increase retention and innovate to make more effective use of both workforce and new technologies.

In this sense, I would like to welcome the EP’s initiative on the EU Health Workforce Crisis Plan and hope that its conclusions will focus on fair, inclusive, and systemic measures. We truly need people to keep hospitals running.

On the other hand it is essential to have objective information on healthcare costs, and to ensure that the financing of healthcare provision is fair, transparent, and up to date. In this regard, European programs and measures should also not discriminate based on the nature of hospitals.

This month we are also proud to share that UEHP was invited to participate in the 2025 Taiwan Healthcare Expo. In the hospital session I presented a brief overview of UEHP and key Contributions of Private Hospitals and Clinics in the different European healthcare systems and I took part in the Leadership Dialogue about “Advancing Quality through Technology, Smart Innovation, and Data”.

it is very valuable to share experiences and to see how different systems operate. There is no such thing as the ideal model or “one size fits all” approach in healthcare and we know there are always challenges to address. However when private investment is encouraged and providers are organized to do their best, striving for efficiency,  serving more people and ensuring high levels of innovation, quality and safety, there are certainly important lessons to be learned.