Legislation and regulations

You will have to deal with a great many rules and laws within the framework of practicing your profession as a dentist. We have prepared a brief summary of relevant legislation and regulations in order to give you an idea of what you will be dealing with. This overview does not contain the full legal texts but generally aims to provide only a brief summary of the provisions set out in the various laws. References to more extensive texts or additional background information are also included.

Individual Healthcare Professions Act (BIG)
The rules and regulations that apply to care professionals are set out in the Individual Healthcare Professions Act (Dutch acronym: BIG, fully implemented as of 1 December 1997). This legislation has two goals:

• promoting and supervising the quality of the professional care services provided;
• protecting the patient against incompetent and careless actions on the part of care professionals.


Several aspects of this legislation are important for dentists, including foreign dentists working in the Netherlands.


A. Legally regulated profession

B. Restricted activities/ treatments

C. Dental hygienist and functional independence

D. Dental assistant and prosthesis assistent

E. Healthcare Inspectorate circular on reassignment of responsibilities
The Healthcare Inspectorate (IGZ) has noticed that there is a lack of transparency in the dental care sector with regard to task reassignment. This often involves dentists who have trained outside the Netherlands who are not listed in the BIG register but who carry out restricted actions such as giving local anaesthesia, pulling teeth and treating caries. It also involves dental assistants and dental technicians who independently perform these types of restricted actions.

The IGZ finds that persons who are not allowed to carry the title of dentist should be allowed to perform restricted actions only if certain conditions are complied with.

The circular is available on the IGZ website.

Disclaimer
The NMT has taken the utmost care in putting together the information in this overview. Nevertheless, the NMT can accept no liability whatsoever with regard to the correctness of the information or any consequences it may have. No part of this publication may be copied or published or made available to third parties without explicit written permission from the NMT.