Publications
-
Gateway monitoring Basic care as the link between people, care and society
Summary Effective basic care is important for making care accessible, affordable and good-quality. However, the associated first-line health and welfare facilities are coming under increasing pressure. The number of people with a chronic illness is growing and care issues are becoming ever more complex. Many of the health problems people experience are not isolated but are tied to behaviour or to social or other environmental factors such as family, relationships, work, income and housing. In this recommendation, these multi-faceted problems serve as a lens for the approach taken by basic care. Good examples demonstrate that much personal and social damage (both short and long-term) can be prevented by structuring care to cater for multi-faceted problems. The core policy question addressed in this recommendation is: How should we rearrange things at the ‘gateway’ to healthcare in order to improve accessibility, clarity of problems and the available care options where multi-faceted problems are involved? Read more >
-
Offending and mental illness Forensic and compulsory mental healthcare form a chain
The Minister of Health, Welfare and Sport and the State Secretary for Security and Justice have asked the Council for Public Health and Care (RVZ) what is required for the successful introduction of the Forensic Care Act (Wfz) and the Mandatory Mental Healthcare Act (WvGGZ), which are together designed to improve the alignment of forensic and regular mental healthcare. This would benefit patients and offenders as well as society itself, as effective, coordinated care can reduce recidivism, thus helping to make society safer. Read more >
-
Self-sufficiency in old age Care for dependent elderly people requires precautionary measures by everyone
What measures are needed in order to guarantee proper care and a good quality of life for care-dependent elderly people in the future? That is the question at the heart of this Council for Public Health and Care recommendation. The Council understands the term ‘care-dependent elderly people’ to refer to ‘elderly people who are unable to independently take care of the essential aspects of their lives, namely care, accommodation and well-being’. It is the Council’s aim to ensure that future care for the elderly is organised such that people enjoy better health in their later years, with a good quality of life and in their desired living environment. Collective care must therefore focus on care-dependent elderly people. Read more >
-
Preventing disease of affluence: a summary Effectively and efficiently organised
Diseases of affluence, or loss of health due to lifestyle habits associated with modern affluent society, usually feature far less in prevention policy compared with infectious diseases and accidents. This is disproportionate to the degree of widespread illness they cause; improved lifestyle habits could increase not only life expectancy, but also the number of healthy years and years free of disability/chronic conditions. Right now we are seeing a (sometimes significantly) increase of life expectancy without a corresponding increase in the number of years free of disability/chronic disease. Within the context of increasing demand for care, prevention offers major societal advantages in terms of both paid and unpaid productivity and participation. Prevention is one possible solution to rising healthcare costs and the looming and imminent difficulties in the labour market. Read more >
-
Medical-specialist care in 20/20: a summary
The medical specialist care landscape in 2020 will look very different from how we know it at present. The need for change is driven, on the one hand, by the strong growth in the demand for healthcare that the years ahead will bring and, on the other, the limited financial scope for meeting that demand both now and in the future. Furthermore, the nature of the demand for healthcare is changing: we expect to see increasing numbers of chronically ill patients who, moreover, will often be suffering from multiple disorders simultaneously. Read more >
-
Aiming for Health
In the trend of rising life expectancies, the Netherlands continues to lag behind a number of other European countries. Differences in the quality of care among individual hospitals and healthcare providers are inexplicably large. The quality of care in the caring sector is failing to deliver in a number of areas, while patient satisfaction could clearly be better. Results are also disappointing when it comes to prevention; unhealthy lifestyle choices such as smoking, excessive alcohol use and insufficient physical exercise are simply too entrenched. All financial preconditions are keyed to financing treatments rather than achieving specific results. Read more >
-
Provisions for labour-saving innovations in healthcare
The core question that concerns this recommendation is the following: Read more >
-
Competent = qualified Innovative education and training and new health care professions
The 13th of April, 2011 the Council for Public Health and Health Care in the Netherlands has published its advisory report ‘Innovative education and training and new health care professions’. Read more >
-
‘Good patientship’
In recent decades, there has rightly been considerable emphasis on the rights of patients. Read more >
-
Perspective of Health 20/20
The government’s role is to createa perspective and the conditions for good, sustainable care properspective, which matches changing care requirements of a changing client population. Efforts to manage costs within the care sector will reflect the government’s vision for the sector. Read more >