Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees
Wednesday, 22 June 2022
Joint Oireachtas Committee on Health
Rare Diseases: Discussion (Resumed)
Mr. Liam Woods:
I heard the contribution and saw the graph actually. I think we were about 477 days versus the Netherlands figure the Deputy just quoted. Belgium I think was at 447 or so. A differentiation the speaker made was that there are seven or eight insurance funds operating in the Netherlands, which are in kind of a private capacity, whereas in Belgium with the social insurance, there is an administration, as she referred to it. There are different models, and I think she was pointing to that. The question on what the model needs and what effect the model has on the timing of the introduction perhaps is slightly different. On the question of whether we can and do look at the reimbursement process and how could that be speeded up, as Deputy Cullinane referred to, we can of course within our current model of delivery. The Netherlands and, indeed, Germany, as the speaker identified, introduce immediately on approval by the European Medicines Agency, EMA, as I understand it.
Is there anything Mr. Flanagan wanted add about the reimbursement process?
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