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.Although the Netherlands has good access to healthcare and good average quality of care, the sector can and – according to the Council for Public Health and Health Care (RVZ) – must do better.