Do we have adequate provision of information on long-term care?

To ensure the financial sustainability of long-term care the Exceptional Medical Expenses Act (Awbz) will be split into four different laws: the "Social Support Act 2015 (WMO), the Juvenile law (Jw), the Long-term care Act (WLZ) and the Health Insurance (ZWV). The care that will be transferred to the WMO and the Jw fall from 2015 on under the responsibility of municipalities. It concerns the support for self-reliance and participation, sheltered housing, client-support and youthcare. Longterm care for the most vulnerable groups will be accommodated in the WLZ, as the immediate successor of the core-Awbz. Finally, nursing and personal care, treatment sensory disabled, palliative care and intensive child care will be transferred to the Health Insurance Act, and therefore are the responsibility of the health insurance companies.

The decentralization of long-term care will change much in the Netherlands, and the question arises whether we are able to monitor and evaluate the care and the consequences of the changes therein to a sufficient degree. With the disappearance of the Awbz part of the data on the long-term care is no longer centrally administered by Vektis, but locally by the municipalities. This change in storage and accessibility of care data may have implications for monitoring the long-term care.

In this Spectrum, attention is paid to the possible information implications for long-term care. First, by Sigrid Mohnen and Jeroen Struijs of RIVM the usefulness of the long-term care data collected at Vektis is explained. They show how the situation before and after the transfer of tasks to the municipalities will be. Mariëtta Eimers and Marten Munneke of ParkinsonNet show a good example of the capabilities of current data available at Vektis. After that Hidde Boonstra and colleagues of KING explain what the developments are the VNG. Finally, Annette Pietersen, councillor Society, Sustainability, and Service in the municipality Nieuwkoop outlines what the decentralization of long-term care means for the information needs of the municipality.

It is clear that much will change in the field of information, and that serious steps need to be taken to adjust provided information to information needed.