Dr Ole Johan Bakke elected President

Dr Bakke (Norwegian Medical Association) was unanimously elected as CPME President, he will serve a three-year term from 2025 to 2027, having previously served as Vice-President since 2019. The full press release is here.

The full CPME Board of Directors elected for 2025-2027 is:

President: 

• Dr Ole Johan Bakke (Norwegian Medical Association)

Vice-Presidents:

• Dr Andreas Botzlar (German Medical Association)
• Dr Jacqueline Rossant-Lumbroso (French Medical Council)
• Dr Péter Álmos (Hungarian Medical Chamber)
• Dr Kitty Mohan (British Medical Association)

Treasurer:

• Professor Dr Ray Walley (Irish Medical Organisation)

Members conference: The European Doctor and Digital Health

Distinguished speakers included Abigail Norville (Deputy Secretary-General of the Dutch Ministry of Health, Welfare and Sport) and Prof. Dr. Henk Marquering (Professor of Translational Artificial Intelligence), who explored the technological impacts on healthcare. Legal and ethical aspects of digital health were also a focal point, with Prof. Corrette Ploem, (Professor of Law, Healthcare Technology and Medicine), and Prof. Dr Tamar Sharon (Professor of Philosophical Ethics and Political Philosophy), leading these discussions.

We published a press release: From past to future: European Doctors celebrate 175th anniversary of the Royal Dutch Medical Association by discussing digitisation of healthcare. A more detailed event report is planned for our winter magazine.

Opening address by Prof. Dr Jan Anthonie Bruijn, President of the Dutch Senate

Prof. Dr Bruijn provided vital questions for our discussions that are tackled by the Dutch Parliament on the sustainability of healthcare and highlighted that we need to make explicit choices about where our priorities lie. He concluded that all Western countries share similar challenges and that international cooperation is mandatory, and associations such as CPME can be pivotal.

Policy on deployment of AI

CPME adopted a policy addressing sector-specific challenges and accelerators for the deployment of AI in healthcare. The policy sheds some light on the main reasons for a low uptake of AI in healthcare and provides recommendations to improve its uptake. The policy is focused on clinical decision-making AI systems. European doctors stress that the deployment of AI cannot mean a disinvestment in other areas of healthcare systems. AI products should be seamlessly integrated into the healthcare information system, so health professionals do not need to manually input the same information across different systems. Patients’ awareness and consent of AI system usage is an ethical requirement to be upheld in the patient-doctor relationship. Doctors should be free to decide whether to use an AI system, bearing in mind the best interests of the patient, and to retain the right to disagree with an AI system, without repercussions.

Vice-President Prof. Dr Ray Walley will showcase the new policy at the seminar on ‘Innovative Technologies in Healthcare: AI and beyond’ hosted by the Hungarian presidency of the Council of the EU on 19 November.

Policy on transparency of relationships between doctors and healthcare industry

The updated guidelines acknowledge that while industry-led regulation is a reality in many European countries, recent trends show a growing shift towards government adoption of policies to regulate relationships between doctors and the healthcare industry.​

Also, CPME takes note of the debate at the European level to enhance transparency and set minimum standards of reporting on transfers of value between doctors and the healthcare industry. We support such initiatives and recommend that transparency registers should include details such as the name of the marketing authorisation holder, the prescriber, the medicinal product concerned, the purpose of transfer, and the monetary value. To ensure accountability and transparency to the public, this information should be accessible and publicly available in a consistent and regular manner. ​

We also underline that registration of transfers of value between doctors and healthcare industry should not be duplicated at the national or EU level.

Policy on the quality of basic medical education

CPME adopted a policy on the quality of basic medical education, calling for authorities at the European and national level to uphold high standards on basic medical training. At a time of health workforce crisis CPME warns against any reductions to the duration of medical education and underlines the need to regularly review and update medical curricula to meet future challenges.

On 19 November, Dr Martin Balzan will speak at a Panel discussion on sustainable EU health care systems at the Politico Healthcare Summit in Brussels, where he will highlight the policy. You can follow the livestream on the Summit web page.

Policy on commercial determinants of health

CPME adopted a policy on commercial determinants of health, calling for an increased attention to the causal link between commercial actors, their products, and health outcomes. Four major commercial sectors – alcohol, tobacco, ultra-processed foods and beverages, and fossil fuels, cause an estimated 2.7 million premature deaths annually in the WHO European Region. This is linked to insufficiently or badly regulated industries and products. CPME policy offers a number of recommendations particularly for policy-makers to tackle this problem.

Joint Statement on Electronic Product Information (ePI)

Doctors, nurses, community and hospital pharmacists, hospitals and healthcare services, consumers, older people, health insurance funds and not-for-profit health mutuals, call on legislators to maintain paper package leaflets, and use electronic leaflets as a complementary tool.

#DoctorsVoice campaign launched to members

The #DoctorsVoice campaign launch webpage was presented to members, which contains videos bringing together the perspectives of doctors across Europe. The videos end with clear policy recommendations. The secretariat will follow up with MEPs to organise an event in the European Parliament in 2025. The campaign will be supported by a new Instagram channel. A dedicated message on the next steps of the campaign will follow in the coming weeks.

National reports

The session kicked off with a presentation from our guests from the Canadian Medical Association. It continued with reports from North Macedonia, Norway, Czech Republic, Israel, France, Hungary and the UK (presentations available on the meeting page, also including additional material by Peter Holden of BMA/UEMO).

Other policy discussions

An update was provided on the CPME response to the European Commission’s consultation on the implementation of the Directive on the Mutual Recognition of Professional Qualifications (PQD).

An update was provided on the CPME-EMO joint policy on the health workforce crisis.

An update on CPME’s participation in the WHO/Europe’s survey on doctors’ mental health and wellbeing in the EU countries, Iceland and Norway. CPME invited the national medical associations to disseminate the short questionnaire which is available in all the major languages of these countries and open until 31 December.

Dates for next General Assemblies

21-22 March 2025, Brussels

24-25 October 2025, Greece

20-21 March 2026, Location TBD

22-23 October 2026, Location TBD