European Commission publishes final report of Study Q and Equality of Access to Healthcare Services: HealthQUEST

Aims

The project led by the European Health Management Association (EHMA) with the European Centre Vienna had these main objectives:

 To identify and analyse barriers of access to health care services which are faced by vulnerable groups in society, and especially those most exposed to social exclusion;
 To review the various policy initiatives taken by the Member States to realise the objective of access for all, including the analysis of good practice examples;
 To highlight and describe the most effective policy measures to ensure access to health care to the most disadvantaged (including a case study on people with mental health problems);
 To help determine the extent to which increased access to and quality of health care services can make to combating poverty and social exclusion and increasing social inclusion.

Results

Besides the final report, eight country wide analyses where carried out by the following countries: Finland, Germany, Greece, Netherlands, Poland, Spain, Romania, and United Kingdom.

Project partners / consortium leader:

 European Health Management Association (EHMA), Dublin
 European Centre for Social Welfare Policy and Research , Vienna
 Finland: Kristian Wahlbeck, University of Helsinki
 Germany: Anette Riesberg, [Technical University of Berlin-http://www.tu-berlin.de/]
 Greece : John Kyriopoulos, National School of Public Health-http://www.nsph.gr/oikonomika/eng/], Athens
 The Netherlands: Nicoline Tamsma, Netherlands Institute for Care and Welfare
 Poland: Stanislawa Golinowska, Jagiellonian University, Public Health Institute
 Romania: Miaora Predescu
 Spain: Ines Garcia-Sanchez
 United Kingdom: Maria Goddard, University of York, Centre for Health Economics EuroHealthNet: Clive Needle, Caroline Costongs For further information please contact federico.torres@ehma.org

For more information

 For the full report

 and the executive summary