Health policy making: the Dutch experience.

The European Strategy for Health for All by the Year 2000 urged member states to develop a national health policy. In the developmental process of HFA2000 the notion of 'healthy public policy' was conceived in the framework of the WHO Health Promotion Programme. Such healthy public policy--simply referred to as 'health policy' in this article--would take health consequences in all governmental and societal realms into account. Health policy development in The Netherlands was laid down in a 1986 memorandum, 'Nota 2000'. The developmental process of the document is reviewed, and chances for factual implementation analysed. The article concludes with a list of actions to be pursued if health policy is to be successful.