Health policy and health services research in The Netherlands

This paper describes the development of health services research in The Netherlands in the last decade. For that purpose, an outline of the organisational structure of health research in general is presented first. It is shown that an increasing share of total resources for health research is allocated to health services research, now amounting to almost 10%. Emphasis is on the development of government health policy, which has given a strong stimulus to the volume of research projects in this area. Preparatory to the introduction of the new Health Care Services Act, which introduces the concept of planning of all health services at decentralised level, a large research program is being developed by the Ministry of Health and Environmental Protection. This program includes activities such as the development of regional health information systems, studies on the coherence of health care facilities, studies on efficient resource allocation and studies related to quality assessment and effectiveness of health care provision. Furthermore, a number of governmental policies to support the development of health services research are considered. Most important in this respect is the development of a Council for Health Research, which advises the government on all issues of research policy and which constitutes of scientists, government representatives and representatives of organisations using research work. Finally, an attempt is made to describe the Dutch situation within the international context.