Local councils must get a move on with reassessing people with personal care budgets (PGBs), junior health minister Martin van Rijn said on Tuesday.

The budget for PGBs, which is around €2.5bn a year, is now administered by councils and health insurance companies and paid out by the Social Insurance Bank.
Around 200,000 people receive a personal care budget of whom 125,000 will lose their medical indications unless they are reassessed before January 1 2016.

Last month, the local authority association VNG warned that local councils do not have enough civil servants to carry out the investigations which are necessary on time.

Deadline

Van Rijn has now written to all councils urging them to make haste and setting a deadline of October 1 for all the reassessments to be completed.

A spokesman from the health ministry told broadcaster Nos that councils have been aware for some time that reassessments must be carried out before January 1.

‘In many cases, it is not at all difficult because the medical indication can just be extended,’ he said.

He also pointed out that some councils, such as Den Bosch, have chosen to extend all their PGB indications for six months to give themselves more time for reassessment.

Chaos

It is not the first time aspects of the new PGB system have caused problems. Chaos ensued earlier this year because with payments no longer made to the patient, carers are now paid by the social insurance bank but are receiving payments too late or not at all.

In July, the Telegraaf reported that 2,800 carers had joined a class action legal case against the bank for compensation.