The hospital sector appears less effective, with the death rate within 30 days of hospital admission for an acute condition (heart attack, brain haemorrhage, stroke) being about twice as high as the lowest rates in Europe (Westert et al., Access to care is facilitated by the comprehensiveness of the basic mandatory health insurance scheme and by the lowest copayments in Europe (Table 2), securing that only few people forgo medical visits for financial reasons (Westert et al., In addition, essential care services are available at short distance to almost the entire population, while waiting times for almost all treatments are below the agreed acceptable standard (known as ‘Treek norms’) (NZa, 2012).