The Netherlands

The Lung Alliance Netherlands (LAN) is the federative association in the field of prevention and care of chronic lung diseases in the Netherlands. Within the LAN, parties from the pulmonary field join forces, including patient associations, professional associations, health insurers and companies.

The coalition joined the IRC in 2023, uniting stakeholders to reduce regional disparities and improve care for people living with chronic lung disease. LAN is an IRC grant recipient, supporting its work on evidence-based vaccination guidelines for chronic respiratory disease patients.

In 2026, the LAN adopted a four-year strategic programme with a primary focus on asthma and COPD. At its centre is the ‘Improvement Agenda for Transmural Interdisciplinary Lung Care’, a shared reference framework identifying the critical transition points in the patient journey where collaboration between healthcare providers across care settings must improve. The agenda follows four steps:

1. Jointly describing what good interdisciplinary care looks like
2. Formulating process parameters to make progress visible
3. Leaving implementation to the field
4. The LAN acting as a driver of change through national dialogue, benchmarking data and five core themes, including:
   1. growing up with asthma
   2. prevention in existing lung disease
   3. diagnosis, exacerbations and monitoring
   4. medication and adherence
   5. and palliative care in COPD

The plan aims to close the gap between available knowledge and daily practice, addressing fragmented care, unreliable transitions between primary and secondary care, and funding structures that do not incentivise collaboration, prevention or follow-up.

Chronic respiratory disease (asthma, COPD)

Royal Dutch Society for Physiotherapy
Royal Dutch Society for the Advancement of Pharmacy
Knowledge Centers for Complex Chronic Lung Diseases
Lung Foundation Netherlands
Netherlands Respiratory Society
Netherlands Association of Physicians for Lung Diseases and Tuberculosis
Dutch Dietetic Association
Dutch Association of Lung Function Analysts
COPD Foundation and Asthma General Practitioners Advice Group and the National Association of General Practitioners
Inhalation Medication Instruction School Foundation
Dutch and Davos Asthma Association
Nurses & Carers Netherlands