The National Authority for Medicolegal Affairs (TEO) operates under the Ministry of Social Affairs and Health to guide and supervise the provision of health services in Finland. Its purpose is to improve social and health care service quality through guidance and supervisory activity/ supervision.
TEO also undertakes activities related to the registration of healthcare professionals, forensic psychiatry and licensing. It is also responsible for issues on abortion, sterilisation, forensic psychiatry, use of human organs and tissues in medicine and medical research, and death investigations.
TEO keeps a central register of health care professionals (TERHIKKI), which contains data of the right to practise a profession of over 300,000 health care professionals. It has access to about 300 experts who are chosen for a term of four years and represent scientific or other expertise meaningful for the activities of the office.
http://www.fepi.org/docs/country_profils/Prof_FI_EN.pdf (accessed on 23.04.2009)
TEO grants, upon application, the right to practice as a licenced or authorised professional and authorises the use of the occupational title of healthcare professional. TEO is a competent authority, which receives applications and issues decisions on the above matters, also in cases where training has been undertaken outside of Finland. A person practicing as a healthcare professional in Finland without a licence may be sentenced to a fine or imprisonment.
http://www.teo.fi/EN/TEO/Role/Sivut/etusivu.aspx (Accessed 23.04.2009)
Finnish Act (559/1994) and Decree (564/19994) www.finlex.fi/fi/laki/ajantasa/1994/19940559 (accessed 23.04.2009)