On June 8, the Patient Access Partnership (PACT) and the Lithuanian Cancer Patient Coalition (POLA) held a stakeholder meeting entitled “Patient-Centred Roundtable on Working Together for Accessible Health”. The event, organized in cooperation with the Committee on Health Affairs of Lithuanian Parliament (Vilnius), Lithuanian Ministry of Health, Lithuanian Patients‘ Forum and the European Patients’ Forum (EPF), took place in the Lithuanian Parliament and was held under the auspices and with the presence of the Lithuanian Minister of Health, Prof. Dr. Aurelijus Veryga.
The meeting was the first of several planned country stakeholder meetings to be held in selected EU Member States. It was initiated by PACT as a follow-up event to the PACT Regional Conference (12-13 September 2016, Sofia) where one of the main conclusions coming from the discussions between various stakeholders from Central and Eastern Europe was that the European Semester process should better reflect the country-level situation.
An emphasis was put on the need to allow broader stakeholder involvement and input with respect to the Country Specific Recommendations (CSRs). In this context, the meeting in Lithuania offered a timely opportunity for policy-makers and the healthcare community in Lithuania to increase cooperation and explore opportunities for effective engagement on existing and future healthcare policies with the aim to improve access to quality healthcare for patients.
Roundtable report
