Health Governance after Brexit: Law, Language and Legitimacy

UK and EU Flags being separated

Project start date: February 2019

Project duration: 2 years

Funding awarded by the Economic and Social Research Council


Project Information

Professor Tamara Hervey, from the University of ºù«Ӱҵ’s School of Law, is leading a two-year project with Queen’s University Belfast looking at post-Brexit governance in an area that was critical in the referendum debates: health and the NHS. The project is part of the ESRC's Governance after Brexit programme.

The project team is Professor Hervey; Dr Matthew Wood (University of ºù«Ӱҵ's Department of Politics) and (Queen's University Belfast's School of Law); and Dr Ivanka Antova (Queen's University Belfast's School of Law).

Guided by co-producers from the health policy sector, we are analysing the implications for health and the NHS of new post-referendum legal texts as they emerge. We are also gathering views from the public in the North of England and Northern Ireland using ‘hit and run’ street conversations – a novel form of ethnographic research.

Project Aims

We are comparing the legal language, the elite language used in health contexts, and the language of the public, focusing on metaphors and stories, to uncover the extent to which post-Brexit health governance can be said to be legitimate.


Health and the NHS remain critical to public and elite understandings of EU membership and what will be possible outside of the EU. We are studying the unfolding post-Brexit legal settlement to see its impact on health, and what experts and the public think about its meaning and significance.

Professor Tamara Hervey


Collaborators

We are working closely with several external collaborators including:

  • Members of Parliament


News

'Brexit, Health and Me' documentary receives wide audience via Amazon Prime

The Health Governance after Brexit team have long enjoyed a close and fruitful collaboration with ShouOutUK. One of the pillars of this collaboration has been the film 'Brexit, Health and Me', which looks closely at the ways Brexit is going to impact healthcare and our NHS. We are delighted to announce that, in the short time the film has been available on Amazon Prime, it has been viewed over 4000 times. Not only does this confirm to us that the project's work is reaching a wide audience, it also shows how public interest in issues like Brexit, health/healthcare and the NHS is very high. We hope that as many people as possible will watch the film and that it continues to stimulate discussion of the pressing contemporary issues it explores. 

You can see a trailer for the film below and can access the full film on Amazon Prime video.


Brexit, health & me: Educating young people on the links between politics and healthcare

Our team has been working with Shout Out UK to produce a documentary exploring the perspectives, hopes and expectations for health and the NHS in the aftermath of Brexit.
The documentary is freely accessible on Shout Out UK’s learning portal along with helpful resources and a quiz pack. These resources are popular with school teachers and youth leaders, for teaching pupils how democracy and the media works.
The ‘Brexit, Health & Me’ pack will be provided free to over one thousand schools in the UK to engage students following A Level Politics courses and similar courses in Scotland and Northern Ireland, and for general civic education. The pack is perfect for home learning, which is still the norm for the vast majority of secondary school students at present.

Register for free and access the course here: 

Shout Out UK trailer

The trailer for Brexit, Health and Me is now here featuring the work of Professor Hervey; Dr Matthew Wood,  and Dr Ivanka Antova. This film follows this project's research on Brexit and how it is going to impact our NHS. 
 

Policy analysis/briefings 

Brexit and Beyond, January 2020

Briefing for the Faculty of Public Health: Policy, Planning and Preparedness, October 2020

Briefing for Brexit Health Alliance: How we can protect patients as we approach the end of the Brexit transition', October 2020

Briefing for NHS Confederation: Analysis of the Withdrawal Agreement concerning access to cross-border healthcareand related rights post-transition, September 2020

Briefing for The UK in a Changing Europe: Post-Brexit Trade Negotiations and Health Governance, July 2020

Briefing for NHS Confederation: Comparison of the EU and UK negotiating draft legal texts concerning access to cross-border healthcare and related rights post-transition, July 2020

Briefing for Cancer Research UK, UK-EU Negotiations and Clinical Research: Cancer Research UK Recommendations, May 2020

Briefing note for Cancer Research UK, Cooperative relationships for bio-medical science post-Brexit: the legal landscape, February 2020  

Briefing note for the British Medical Association, The Withdrawal Agreement and the Future EU-UK relationship, February 2020

Briefing Paper on EHIC rights of Northern Ireland Born Irish Citizens,2019

Briefing for Kidney Care UK Brexit's implications for dialysis poster, August 2019

Briefing for Kidney Care UK Post Brexit Dialysis Scenario, 2019

Briefing for Kidney Care UK Dialysis Abroad After Brexit: Summary, August 2019

Briefing for Kidney Care UK Dialysis Abroad After Brexit: Detailed Analysis

Evidence sessions

Hervey, T., Wood, M., et al, Evidence to the EU Environment Sub-Committee, February 2020

Tamara Hervey's opening statement for the Joint Committee for Health of the Oireachtas, 6 November 2019

Academic outputs 

 

Phillips, A. N., et al., 'Brexit and Biobanking: GDPR Perspectives' chapter summary, in Individual Rights, Public Interest and Biobank Research - Article 89 GDPR and European Legal Responses, (Springer, forthcoming 2020)

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Blog posts

Conference papers

UK Faculty of Public Health webinar, Brexit and public health: policy, planning and preparedness, October 2020, Brexit: The Latest Legal Implications

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Law and Society Conference, Denver, May 2020, - Health Governance after Brexit: Law, Language and Legitimacy

​European Consortium for Political Research Conference, Warsaw, September 2019 - Can Elite Institutions be deliberatively Democratic? The Case of the European Medicines Agency’s Public Hearing on Valproate

UACES Conference, Lisbon, September 2019 - The NHS Brexit bus: comparing narratives of accountability and legitimacy in post-referendum health governance

SLA Conference, Lancaster, September 2019 - Health Governance after Brexit: law, language and legitimacy

CLC Conference, Perugia, 2019 - Taking back control (of our health): The reponsibilised UK citizen and post-Brexit health governance

​Jean Monnet Workshop, Copenhagen, June 2019 - Healthcare and the Fate of Social Europe - Health ‘Brexternalities’: The Brexit effect on health and health care outside the EU

​SLSA Conference, Edinburgh, April 2019 - Exploring Legitimacy of Health Governance after Brexit through Law and Language: Methodological Reflections

SLSA Conference, Leeds, April 2019 - Exploring Legitimacy of Health Governance After Brexit Through Law and Language: Methodological Reflections

Media

Tamara Hervey joined an expert panel for the European Health Forum Gastein to discuss the question: 'Have we failed to protect Europe's People? The case for a European Health Union'

LAW European Health Union - T Hervey

Mark Fear et al. warns that Brexit threatens the UK's ability to respond to Covid-19 and future pandemics, The Guardian, March 2020

 

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Project reports

Project Report February 2021

Project Report August 2020

Project report February 2020

Project report August 2019

Past events

Healthy Partnerships? The Impact of Brexit & the Priorities for Sovereign Cooperation

19 January 2021

Hosted by the EU-UK Forum, Tamara Hervey joined a panel of other experts to discuss Brexit's impact on NHS recruitment, cross-border cooperation, and the effects of sovereign independence on vaccine procurement. 


Health Policy in the EU and "European" health care

13th January 2021

Tammara Hervey presented the project's paper on ‘Brexternalities’ and the effect of Brexit on healthcare outside of the UK, at this seminar. This paper can be viewed in the 'Academic Outputs' drop-down menu above. 


GreensEFA in the EP: first EU-UK agreement briefing re Social Security and Labour Law

8th January 2021

Tamara Hervey presented her gap analysis of the Withdrawal Agreement. 


Northern/Ireland Health law & Ethics Network (N/IHLEN) & Irish Association of Law Teachers (IALT) virtual symposium

11 December 2020

Mark Flear co-convened this event which addressed 'Covid-19 and Legal Responses on the Island of Ireland'. Ivanka Antova presented on policy responses to Covid-19 and disability.  


Brexit: Legal, Public Health, Food Supply & Security Impacts

24 November 2020 

Tamara Hervey participated in the Socialist Health Association event where she spoke on the current legal implications of Brexit for healthcare and the NHS. 


Covid-19, EU Transition, and the Welsh Health and Social Care Sector

23 June 2020

Tamara Hervey formed part of an expert panel to discuss the Brexit transition period and the complicating factor of government's Covid-19 response. 


Law Through a Lens: Brexit, Health and Me 

29th April 2020

A discussion with staff and students was held about how legal and policy research in the University of ºù«Ӱҵ - including undergraduate and postgraduate student research - contributes to real world problems. 

Photos
Tammy Hervey

Professor Tamara Hervey, School of Law, University of ºù«Ӱҵ

Mark Flear

 Dr. Mark Flear, School of Law, Queen's University Belfast

Ivanka Antova

Dr. Ivanka Antova, School of Law, Queen's University Belfast

Natalia Miernik

​Natalia Miernik, School of Law