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The official registers: checking a hospital or a clinician
Every country in this family publishes a searchable register of licensed health professionals and registered providers. Here is which one, and what a search does and does not prove.
This page explains how the system works. It is not a diagnosis, it cannot tell you how urgent your own situation is, and it is not a directory: it carries no clinic addresses, opening hours or visiting times, because those change and a wrong one sends you to a closed door. If someone may be seriously ill or injured, call the emergency number — 112 across the region, 113 for medical emergencies in Norway — and if you are unsure, call your country’s advice line rather than deciding from a web page.
Why these registers exist and why to use them
Health professions in this region are licensed rather than merely titled: the words doctor, nurse, midwife, dentist and physiotherapist are protected, and holding them requires an entry in a state register. Each country publishes that register, free and searchable by name, which means the question "is this person actually qualified" has a five-minute answer instead of a reputational one. Providers are registered separately from people — a clinic holds an activity licence, an individual holds a professional registration — and for a private clinic in particular it is worth checking both, because a licensed doctor can work at an unlicensed premises and the licence is what carries the obligations.
What a register search proves, and what it does not
A hit tells you that a state body has verified the qualification and that the licence is current, and in several countries it will show restrictions imposed by a supervisory decision. It does not tell you whether the person is good at their job, whether they are appropriate for your problem, or whether their subspecialty claim is real — subspecialty is often not a register field at all. Nor does an absence always mean fraud: names change, foreign practitioners appear under transliterations, and temporary licences are recorded differently. Treat a miss as a reason to ask rather than as a verdict, and ask in plain terms; a legitimate practitioner is used to the question.
Checking across a border
A qualification earned in one EEA country is recognised in another under the professional qualifications framework, but recognition is not automatic in the sense of being invisible — the practitioner still appears in the register of the country where they work, and that is the register to search. If someone treats you in Finland, the Finnish register is the relevant one regardless of where they studied. This matters most for cross-border planned treatment, where the clinic is chosen from a website: search the register of the country where the clinic actually is, before you pay a deposit, and see the cross-border page for the rest of that decision.
| Country | Register | What it tells you |
|---|---|---|
| Estonia | Health Board registers of health professionals and of healthcare providers | That the person holds a registration and the provider holds an activity licence |
| Finland | JulkiTerhikki, the public register of health professionals | Right to practise, profession and qualification date |
| Sweden | The National Board of Health and Welfare licence lookup | Whether a licence exists and in which profession |
| Norway | The health personnel register, via the Directorate of Health | Authorisation and licence status |
| Denmark | The Patient Safety Authority’s authorisation register | Authorisation, and any restrictions on it |
| Latvia | The Health Inspectorate registers of practitioners and institutions | Registration of the person and of the treatment institution |
| Lithuania | The state accreditation service for healthcare activities | Licence to practise and institutional licensing |
The hospital side of the question
For hospitals the useful register is not the professional one but the provider list, and in a country like Estonia it goes further: the hospital network development plan is itself a published list, so you can see whether a hospital is in the plan and at what tier, which tells you what it is obliged to keep open around the clock. That is a stronger signal than any marketing page. For private providers, the activity licence names which services the provider is licensed for, which is the check to make when a clinic offers something surprising for its size. The hospital levels page explains what the tiers oblige.
What this surface deliberately does not list
There are no addresses, telephone numbers, opening hours or prices for individual clinics anywhere in these pages, and that is a decision rather than an omission. Those details change constantly, a stale one sends someone to a closed door, and every country already publishes them at source in a form that is current. What a reference page can usefully add is the structure — which register, which tier, which limit, which number — and the pointer to the authority that holds the rest. The records and complaints page covers what to do when the answer you get from that authority is unsatisfactory.
Sources: JulkiTerhikki — Finnish public register of health professionals · Socialstyrelsen — Swedish licence lookup · Health Board (Terviseamet) — Estonian registers · Health Inspectorate (Veselības inspekcija) — Latvian registers · Danish Patient Safety Authority · checked 2026-09-08
Frequently asked questions
How do I check that a doctor is licensed?
Search the public register of the country where they practise: JulkiTerhikki in Finland, the Board of Health and Welfare lookup in Sweden, the Health Board registers in Estonia, the Patient Safety Authority register in Denmark, the Health Inspectorate registers in Latvia, the health personnel register in Norway. All are free and searchable by name.
Does a register entry mean the doctor is good?
No. It means a state body has verified the qualification and that the licence is current, and it may show restrictions. It says nothing about competence for your particular problem, and subspecialty claims are often not recorded at all.
What if I cannot find someone in the register?
Ask before concluding. Name changes, transliterated foreign names and temporary licences all produce misses. A legitimate practitioner will not mind the question; a refusal to answer it is itself informative.
How do I check a clinic rather than a person?
Providers are registered separately from individuals, so look for the activity licence of the institution as well as the professional registration of the clinician. In Estonia you can also check whether a hospital is in the hospital network development plan, and at which tier — that tells you what it must keep open around the clock.
Related pages
Emergency department, out-of-hours or your own doctor?
Five doors into the same health service, what each is actually for, and the two questions that pick the right one in about ten seconds.
How the emergency department decides who goes first
The five-level ladder, the target times that go with each colour, why arrival order is irrelevant, and what to do when you get worse in the waiting room.
Calling an ambulance: what the dispatcher asks, and why
The questions in the order they come, why you must not hang up, what to do in the minutes before the crew arrives, and when they will send something other than an ambulance.
Stroke, heart attack and sepsis: the conditions with a clock
The three emergencies where the treatment that works expires, the signs that should end the discussion, and why the ambulance beats the car even when the car is faster.
Which emergency department for a child
Where the paediatric emergency care actually is in this region, the age rules that override everything, and the signs that make a child’s illness a same-hour problem.
Every country, every number
The hub: emergency and advice numbers for the whole region, the access rules and all the country pages.
The four questions a hospital always asks
Age, weight, what you take and when it started. TempoLife keeps the medicine log, the symptom timeline and the measurements in one place, so the answers exist before anyone asks for them.