[Education within the Dutch National Care for the Elderly Programme]

The Netherlands Organisation of Health Research and Development started in 2008 the Dutch National Care for the Elderly Programme (in Dutch abbreviated as NPO) with the aim to improve the quality of life for the frail older people through better quality of care (health, social, community) which is tailored to the needs and wants of older people. The delivery of good care is related with competent professional behaviour which is inextricably linked to the education of professionals. This article presents an overview of 32 educational programmes developed within the NPO. Within the NPO different educational programmes were developed on relevant themes to improve elderly care. However, the programmes focused mainly on professionals in health care, especially those working in primary care. For nurses and nursing assistants and more or less for physicians also different educational programmes were developed. Educational programmes for paramedics or professionals working in social care, housing or in the municipalities were scarce. This is also the case for specific themes in elderly care like loneliness or (domestic) violence. Moreover, none of the experiments focused on older people or informal care givers. Although 22 of the 32 projects developed educational programmes for different groups, multi - or interdisciplinary education is rare in these programmes. Based on the overview we advise the development of more educational programmes on: target groups which were less or not addressed in the NPO, like professionals in social care and paramedics; multi- or interdisciplinary collaboration; and themes, like loneliness in older people and elder abuse.