There is no full support yet for the new health care plans. ActiZ, one of the sector’s largest organizations in Dutch healthcare, and the National Association of General Practitioners (LHV) would like more assurances before signing the proposed healthcare agreement.
In the healthcare agreement, the government and representatives of the healthcare sector laid out plans for the future of the sector. Due to the aging population, the demand for care is expected to increase sharply in the coming years. IZA contains all kinds of measures to prevent sector stoppage.
But the agreement has not yet been fully backed. General practitioners, for example, want more guarantees in the short term, for example from the Dutch Health Care Authority (NZa) about prices for care in the evenings, nights and weekends for next year and from health insurers about the agreement that they will be given more time for their patients.
Earlier in the evening, members of the sector organization ActiZ also rejected the healthcare agreement. They said they wanted to see more “guarantees, preconditions and results”. There are a total of about four hundred organizations affiliated with ActiZ, which are mainly active in the care of the elderly and the chronically ill, from nursing homes to home care.
The trade association says it supports the agreement’s “movement”, but says it can only support it if “the feasibility of the agreements is guaranteed in 2023”. The fact that ActiZ and general practitioners do not support the agreement is a pain for the Cabinet, which hopes to strike a broadly supported agreement with the healthcare sector before Budget Day.
Support from nurses for approval
The sponsorship agreement should focus more on prevention and work more efficiently. According to leaked versions, complex care should be more focused, for example, it becomes more difficult to hire providers who do not have a contract with a health insurance company
The V&VN Professional Guild supports the sponsorship agreement. “We are on the eve of tough choices in health care,” says the Nurses and Carers Organization. “We’re already noticing that things are faltering.” “It is precisely for this reason that it is so important that we take responsibility as a professional group in this sponsorship agreement.”
V&VN adds that there are still “important points of interest” if the so-called Integrated Care Agreement (IZA) is successful.
According to V&VN, goals can only be achieved if there is good collaboration between all the different types of parties in the healthcare field. The organization refers to general practitioners, nursing providers, and insurance companies in the area. For example, they should work together to ensure that more care is provided in the home.