Building on its ongoing work to advance heart failure policy, the Heart Failure Policy Network (HFPN) has published a new country profile focused on heart failure in the Netherlands. The profile was commissioned by the Netherlands Heart Institute as an addition to the existing Heart failure policy and practice in Europe series, designed to equip advocates and clinicians with evidence to drive meaningful change.
Heart failure is estimated to affect nearly 2% of the Dutch population, with around 500,000 people currently living with the condition – although almost half of them are unaware of their diagnosis. Each year, over 43,000 people are newly diagnosed, while over 8,000 people die because of heart failure.
Despite the scale of the issue, the Netherlands does not yet have a government-endorsed national strategy for heart failure or cardiovascular disease. HFPN’s country profile highlights the consequences of this gap and sets out priority actions to strengthen early diagnosis, integrate primary care and expand specialist workforce capacity. The report also showcases promising initiatives – such as the Deltaplan Heart Failure (Deltaplan Hartfalen) – that aim to improve awareness and coordination of care across the health system.
This country profile provides a clear policy narrative and benchmarking tool to support advocates in calling for a comprehensive national plan that places heart failure at the forefront of the health agenda in the Netherlands.
