The Netherlands was the first European country that introduced in 1994 a specific regulation of the treatment contract between doctor and patient in its civil code. This implies that the ‘treatment contract’ is treated as a special case of a ‘contract for services’ in general. Later on Estonia, Lithuania and Slovakia copied more or less this model. These four countries all have a special law giving legal rights as specified supra. Therefore no subdivision has been made in this category.

In other Member States, the contractual nature of the rights of patients and duties of physicians is generally accepted in the jurisprudence and the legal literature although the medical treatment contract is not a specific, nominate contract of services and the nature of the contract may vary. We bring these countries together in the “innominate treatment contract” model although in some of these countries the treatment contract may be qualified as a nominate contract e.g. a contract for work or a contract for services.

Top