Sustainability in Three Dimensions

In the previous chapter we looked at current trends and developments in Dutch health and social care. We now turn our attention to their implications for the future sustainability of care. As explained in Chap. 1 , in this report we take a broader than usual view of the concept of sustainability. In this chapter we explore the mechanisms of that wide-ranging interpretation and look at how the three dimensions of sustainability—financial, staffing and societal—are evolving. We do this by reviewing historical developments, the current situation and prognoses for the future. As part of our analysis we also address the finding that the three dimensions are closely interrelated, resulting in everything from mutually reinforcing effects to mutual trade-offs—more of one means less of the other.