Travelling while sick is never pleasant, nor is it easy to take some medicines with you - taking into account, for example, airport restrictions. Yesterday, the European Commission adopted also pan-EU rules defining the minimum list of elements that need to be included in a medical prescription taken by a patient travelling from one Member State to another. These new EU provisions would enable cross-border identification of the patient, the prescriber and the prescribed product, diminishing delays, interruptions in treatment and extra costs. The plan is for the Member States to implement these rules by 25 October 2013. Currently, it is believed that over half of patients would have problems with their prescription being recognised in another Member State and only ca 2,3 million cross-border prescriptions are issued. I'm curious, however, how these new rules would work in practice since they do not prescribe the same appearance, format or language for the prescriptions. See more here.
