Case C-372/04 ex parte Watts [2006] ECR I-4325

• Watts needed a hip replacement and the NHS didn’t give her one for a year, so she went to France and got the treatment after her condition deteriorated.

• She asked the NHS to reimburse her costs, but it refused on the grounds that she had failed to obtain prior authorisation.

• ECJ held that the rule on prior authorisation infringed the Article 49 freedom to provide services and that the NHS would have to compensate an individual who went overseas after a medically unacceptable delay. 

ECJ

• Watts paid for the services she received and the fact that she sought reimbursement does not mean that it ceases to become a service or that Article 49 no longer applies. 

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Free movement and fundamental rights: how we seek to reconcile differently motivated fundamental – but not absolute – rights.