The government is not fulfilling its promise to improve the quality of care for the elderly. That notes the Central Planning Bureau (CPB) this week in a report, about which Wedding Saturday writes. Rutte IV planned to invest an additional 2.7 billion euros annually to improve the quality of care for the elderly. In the meantime, 1.6 billion euros of this has been cut back, the CPB notes.
In the report, the planning office calculated all government measures for elderly care. This revealed cutbacks that had not been announced in the coalition agreement. In 2017, the government decided to make additional investments. But due to “various changes”, as the CPB writes, the original investment in elderly care, but more than half of it has since been reversed. According to the planning office, the intended quality improvement will not be achieved.
Not the promised 2.7 billion euros, but only 1.1 billion euros now remains to provide better care to the elderly. At least a billion would have been lost to cuts to force nursing and care homes to work more efficiently.
The cutbacks are a cause for concern for CPB. The healthcare offer is lower than promised in 2017, the quality is lower and there are fewer healthcare personnel. At the time, for example, the cabinet aimed for 40 percent more healthcare workers.
Read also: How far does care in the light nursing home extend?