The Healthcare Quality, Complaints and Disputes Act

By January 1, 2017 all care providers must have a complaints officer to whom people can go if they have a complaint. If the complaints officer can’t solve the complaint, people can take their complaint to an independent complaints commission. The commission’s decision on the complaint is binding for both parties. The complaints commission can also award damages.

De Geschillencommissie Zorg is such an independent complaints commission. We offer a quick and low-cost means of resolving a dispute. These alternative dispute schemes are acknowledged by both the Dutch Government and the European Commission.

On this website (degeschillencommissiezorg.nl) people can file a complaint against a care provider of one of the following independent complaints commissions:

1. Ambulance Care
2. Complementary and Alternative Medicine
3. Defense Health Care
4. Mental Healthcare
5. Care for Disabled people
6. Optics
7. Osteopathy
8. Psychological and Educational Care
9. Public Health
10. Beauticians
11. Nursing, Care and Birth Care
12. Private clinics
13. Hospitals

If you are a consumer:

1. In case you are a citizen of the Netherlands, who does not speak Dutch and you want to file a complaint with one of the complaints boards, you could ask a friend or relative, who is able to speak and write in the Dutch language, to assist you with filing a complaint at the complaints board.

2. In case you are a citizen of the EU, Norway or Iceland and you live outside of the Netherlands and you would like to file a complaint with one of the complaints boards, please contact the European Consumer Centre (ECC) (this link will send you to the website of the European Consumer Centre) in your own country. The ECC in your country will communicate with you in your own language

The ECC is not allowed to advocate on your behalf at the complaints board, they can only assist you. The ECC provides information on your consumer rights within the EU. For further information in English you can visit www.eccnederland.nl/en (this link will send you to the website of the European Consumer Centre writed in English).

NOTE: All other information on this website is in Dutch.