Positie van richtlijnen onder nieuwe wet

Recent legislation in the Netherlands has led to the creation of an institute for health care quality (‘Zorginstituut Nederland’). This institute maintains a public register of medical practice guidelines. The legislation does not influence the legal position of these guidelines, but may lead to problems with regard to the process of developing guidelines, and to the authority of the institute to accept guidelines without the full cooperation of the medical profession.

Conflict of interest and financial support: a disclosure form provided by the author is available along with the full text of this article at www.ntvg.nl, search for A7380; click on ‘Belangenverstrengeling’ (‘Conflict of interest’).