Survey reveals huge disparities in MS care across Europe

Results were released on 30 November 2010 at the EMSP’s winter conference in Prague.

The best overall performers in this year’s edition are Austria, Germany and Iceland; their Eastern European counterparts lag far behind.

The Barometer also shows that only 31% of the 29 participating countries have palliative care programmes and fewer than half have MS data registers in place. Western European countries still offer better reimbursement of costs than those in Eastern Europe. Meanwhile, access to new therapies and drugs is still slow, due to time consuming national authorisation processes. And crucially, in some countries, less than 5% of people with MS are receiving in-patient rehabilitation.

The conference concluded that European citizens and the public at large need to be accurately informed of the need for more and better therapies for MS. These include oral therapies currently in the pipeline.

MEPs call for better MS care

The Czech Deputy Health Minister and Members of the European Parliament called for improved access to diagnosis, treatment and care for people with MS across Europe