News item | 09-04-2025 | 16:00
Mental health care (GGZ) in the Netherlands is bursting at the seams. As a country, we have never appealed so much to mental health care and as a society we spent so much on mental health care (5.5 billion in 2024, in 2019 that was less than 4 billion). Although there have never been so many people in mental health care, the waiting times are way too long. Especially for people who need mental health care the most. People with a personality disorder, eating disorder, or trauma have to wait about 25 weeks on average. State Secretary Vincent Karremans (Youth, Prevention and Sport) therefore today presents the first part of his ‘Mental Health and GGZ action program’, announcing radical choices in GGZ to turn the tide.
State Secretary Karremans: “At the moment, psychological help is simply offered too quickly for light mental problems, where a different solution is actually better. As a result, people with heavy and complex psychological problems have to wait too long for help.” Often the solution of light mental problems lies outside of mental health care, for example with good debt counseling. That is why Karremans wants people with slight mental problems not unnecessary in mental health care if that is not necessary, but are helped with a solution that helps them noticeable.
Low -threshold support points and data exchange
Earlier it was agreed in the Integrated Care Agreement to arrive at low -threshold support points all over the country. At the moment there are already 278 in the Netherlands. These support points contribute to the recovery of people who lose their roles in society due to problems with their mental health. An additional effect is that this relieves the mental health care and waiting times go down. Karremans also wants better data exchange in mental health care, so that insurers are better able to actively link patients who are somewhere on a waiting list to a care provider who has a quick place available. He explores which legislation is needed for this.
Better treatment duration
The State Secretary also wants to look at the best treatment duration with providers and patient organizations.
“Sometimes we treat for a long time in mental health care, without any meaningful improvement for the patient. Then we have to say at some point: this solution does not work, we will tackle it differently.”
For a small proportion of people, the availability of specific mental health care range is crucial. If this care is lost, this has immediate consequences for those people who need this care. For this part of the mental health care, namely the acute mental health care, the Karremans wants to take an extra step with parties in the coming period to limit market forces so that the availability of this care is better guaranteed.
Mental health
We have known for some time that mental health in the Netherlands is under pressure. Of the young people, 30% are struggling with mental complaints, while that was 20% 5 years ago. Karremans announces that before the summer he will come up with measures in the second part of the ‘Mental Health and GGZ action program’ to improve the mental health of (in particular) young people. The State Secretary previously announced that he is working on unambiguous guidelines/advice for (mental) healthy screen and social media use. These are also expected before the summer.