Transfrontier Operational Mission (MOT) - French Regional Health Agency “Grand Est”, FR

The France-Belgium Convention on cross-border emergency medical services (EMS) allows medical emergency services of both states to intervene on the territory of the other country when necessary. However, the French Regional Health Agency Grand Est (FR) pointed out that the existence of different national categorisations of the emergency vehicles constitute an hurdle to the full implementation of a joint management of emergency medical services.

The team of the Mission Opérationnelle Transfrontaliére (MOT) that consulted the case “Cross-border emergency medical services”(FR-BE) submitted under the initiative b-solutions observed that the origin of the obstacle is to be found directly in the France-Belgium Convention itself: as for the indications therein included, Belgian 112 ambulances are not allowed to cross the border and the financial compensation for medical care is only provided to patients rescued with other types of vehicles.

To overcome the obstacle, the Mission Opérationnelle Transfrontaliére (MOT) proposes to amend the actual Convention or to sign a new one in order to extend its scope to all types of vehicles.

To learn more about the analysis carried out by the consultants download the full report here.