Introduction

Dear Participant,

Thank you in advance for your participation in this survey. We appreciate your feedback and willingness to participate.

What is the survey about?
With this questionnaire, we would like to ask for your opinion concerning corruption and fraud in the healthcare sector, as well as the possible involvement of patients in their prevention.  The healthcare sector is particularly vulnerable to corruption, and this can lead to a low quality in the provision of healthcare services and increase inequality in health status between socio-economic groups. Moreover, funding of healthcare sector is one of concern areas due to the impact on access to healthcare services, vulnerable to corruption and fraud.
Considering the impact of fraud and corruption in the healthcare sector, ultimately on the access of patients to good quality healthcare services, EPF would like to gather more evidence to support its further actions.

The results of this survey will be presented at the Conference on “Ensuring financially sustainable healthcare in Europe: countering fraud, waste & corruption” that will take place in the Hague on 5&6 November 2015.

The survey will explore the opinion of EPF members from 65 patient organisations, and focus mostly on your experience and your member organisations.
 
For the purpose of this survey we define fraud and corruption as following:
Corruption = ‘Passive corruption in the public sector occurs whenever a public official, directly or indirectly, intentionally or in circumstances where it should have been known to him or her, requests or receives any undue advantage for himself or herself or for a third person, or accepts an offer or a promise of such advantage, in order to act or refrain from acting in the exercise of his or her official functions'. [1] 

Fraud = ‘…the use or presentation of false, incorrect or incomplete statements and/or documents, or the non-disclosure of information in violation of a legally enforceable obligation to disclose, having as its effect the misappropriation or wrongful retention of funds or property of others, or their misuse for purposes other than those specified'.[1] 

[1] Definitions prepared by the Swiss Institute of Comparative Research (www.isdc.ch/en) and agreed by the European Healthcare Fraud and Corruption Conference. 

The survey is anonymous. We only ask for information necessary to analyse the results, such as demographic data and country information. Therefore, no personal information will be collected or published.

Please remember that there are no correct or wrong answers, as this survey reflects your opinion.

How much time will it take?
This short survey consists of 10 questions, including multiple choice options (pre-filled). It will only take around 20 minutes to complete.

Please note you need to answer all questions to proceed with the questionnaire, unless the question is marked as “optional” (there is no star next to the question number).

The survey is open until Tuesday, 27 of October 2015, in order to be able to analyse the answers that will be presented at the Conference.

By completing and submitting this survey, you are providing your informed consent.

If you need additional information about the questionnaire, clarifications on the content or wish to submit your input through a telephone interview, please do not hesitate to contact laurene.souchet@eu-patient.eu

Kind regards,

Laurène Souchet

Policy Officer

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