Junior health minister Martin van Rijn has been summoned to parliament to explain the ongoing problems surrounding the reform of the personal care budget system.

Opposition parties CDA, SP and D66 say Van Rijn has not given parliament enough  information about the reforms which have plunged the system into chaos.

The personal care budget (PGB) is an allowance for people who need help to live at home and allows them to buy in their own professional care.

Patients used to be given the cash to spend directly. However, in 2015, following a string of revelations about fraud, control was given to councils and health insurance companies and the money has been paid out by the Social Insurance Bank SVB.

The NRC has carried out an investigation into the PGB system this weekend and found that problems which were highlighted in the run up to the change were systematically played down. The paper bases its claims on government papers, some heavily censored, and many interviews.

Difficulties

The result was that ‘tens of thousands’ of patients got into difficulties because carers were not paid for months. A number of professional care organisations are on the verge of bankruptcy because of delays in payment.

The NRC says the run up to the new system was marked by disagreements between local councils, insurance companies and the SVB in which Van Rijn failed to intervene. Technical problems with the SVB’s  ‘unstable and old’ computer system were ignored and a number of deadlines were not met, the NRC said.

For a time an overwhelmed SVB paid out bills with no controls whatsoever and at this moment the organisation employs 800 people instead of the planned 270 to deal with the personal budgets. Costs have exploded from €30m a year to €75m.

It is not the first time parliament has called Van Rijn to order over the personal budgets. Van Rijn survived an earlier motion of no confidence in 2015.

‘We thought then that Van Rijn was withholding information form parliament and that his methods were hasty and inadequate. Now we are proved right again’ the paper quotes MP Mona Keijzer (CDA) as saying.