• CAM-summaries
• CAM systematic reviews
• CAM and the law
  • Introduction
  • Legal overview
    • Who may treat sick people?
    • Who may provide CAM therapies?
    • Where is CAM legally regulated?
    • How are health personnel legally regulated?
    • How responsible professional conduct is defined and supervised?
    • How can CAM providers be "safe" without regulating them?
    • How patients are safeguarded when there is no regulation or registration?
    • Herbal products, legal regulation
    • Reimbursement, legal regulation
  • Regulation of medical practise
  • Regulation of herbal products
  • Legal regulation
• Prevalence of CAM use

Who may treat sick people?

European countries differ substantially with regard to how they regulate treatment-related activity. In 19 countries only personnel who are regulated (authorised, licensed or given a protected title) can legally perform treatment-related activity. In the following these countries are referred to as having an "all-regulated system". In the remaining 10 countries anyone can perform treatment-related activity, limited only by certain restrictions with regard to which conditions can be treated, and the procedures to be utilized. In this report these countries are referred to as countries with a "semi-regulated system". That means that anybody in these countries may perform safe medical procedures, treat non-serious diseases and provide preventive/prophylaxis. (Table 1)

Table 1: Countries where only authorised / licensed personnel may treat (all-regulated) and countries where anybody may treat but with some restrictions (semi-regulated)

	"All-regulated system" n=19	"Semi-regulated system" n=10
Countries	Austria, Belgium, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Estonia, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Italy, Poland, Portugal Spain, Slovenia, Slovakia?, Switzerland	Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Liechtenstein, Irland, Malta, The Netherlands, Norway, Sweden, UK
Who may treat	Regulated personnel	Regulated personnel	Anyone
Health related activity they may perform	"risky" medical procedures, treating serious diseases, safe medical procedures, preventive/prophylaxis	"risky" medical procedures, treating serious diseases, safe medical procedures, preventive/prophylaxis	Safe medical procedures, preventive/prophylaxis