The Scientific Advisory Council (WAR) is an independent committee. The committee advises the Executive Board of the National Health Care Institute. To this end, the WAR reviews the scientific evidence on the quality of medicinal products and treatments. In other words, how well certain care works. The committee consists of separate working committees, each with its own area of focus. The WAR consists of various experts, including healthcare professionals, scientists, researchers and policy advisers within the healthcare sector. The chair of the WAR is Prof. M.A. (Manuela) Joore. The secretary is Dr L. (Lonneke) Timmers, an advisor to the National Health Care Institute.
Scientific Advisory Board advisory reports
The WAR provides advisory reports to the National Health Care Institute during its reviews of medicinal products and treatments. The WAR reviews whether the National Health Care Institute's conclusions are sufficiently scientifically-based. In doing so, the WAR considers the following questions:
- Does the medicinal product or treatment work better, equally well or less well than the standard treatment? And for which patients?
- Is the price of a medicinal product fairly balanced with the positive impact on patients' health?
- How many patients are expected to be eligible for a particular medicinal product?
- What is the total cost to society?
With this information, the WAR advises on the following:
- whether the assessment of the National Health Care Institute is correct
- whether the scientific research is of sufficient quality
- whether the National Health Care Institute's conclusions are well founded.
Advisory reports of committees to the National Health Care Institute
The Health Care Institute assesses whether a type of care can be reimbursed from the basic health insurance package. In doing so, it receives advisory reports from 2 independent committees: the WAR and the Insured Package Advisory Committee (ACP). The WAR issues advice about the scientific support for an assessment. In doing so, the WAR looks at how well certain care works, for which patients it works and whether the assessment of cost-effectiveness is of sufficient quality. The ACP then determines what is in society’s best interest: it advises from the societal perspective whether a treatment should be included in the basic package. Indeed, the basic package should maximise the health gains for the entire of society. Among other things, the ACP looks at whether the cost of treatment outweighs the health gain. It looks at the interests of the patients who are eligible for reimbursement of a particular treatment, but also those of patients with other disorders as well as the interests of all premium payers. The ACP does not advise on all issues, but mainly when there is a high social impact. The final decision as to whether or not reimbursement from the basic healthcare package will take place lies with the Minister of Health, Welfare and Sport (VWS).