UWV Amsterdam Stops Training New Insurance Doctors After Reports of an Unsafe Work Culture
The step follows a joint EenVandaag and AD investigation into reported intimidation and heavy workloads. The UWV says its training places are also full, and a wider culture review is under way.
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The UWV, the Dutch government agency that handles unemployment and disability benefits, will not take on any new trainee insurance doctors at its Amsterdam office this year, following reports of an unsafe working culture. The decision was reported by the news programme EenVandaag and the newspaper AD, which cited the body that supervises the training.
What the regulator decided
The supervisor is the Registratiecommissie Geneeskundig Specialisten (RGS), the committee that oversees medical specialist training and decides whether the UWV is allowed to train insurance doctors. According to the RGS, no new insurance doctors in training will be taken on in the Amsterdam region this year. It said this was the advice given to the UWV’s Executive Board, which the board followed. “Received signals and the findings from the investigation are the reason for this,” the RGS told EenVandaag and AD.
Separately, a national review of the quality of the UWV’s insurance-doctor training is being brought forward by four months, and will now take place in September 2026 rather than January 2027.
What insurance doctors in training do
To understand why this matters, it helps to know what these doctors do. Insurance doctors (in Dutch, verzekeringsartsen) assess, for the UWV, whether people are able to work, for example when someone applies for a disability benefit such as the WIA. Trainee insurance doctors have already finished their medical degree and are qualified doctors, but must complete a four-year training to specialise, spending four days a week at a practical location, often a UWV office.
According to EenVandaag’s reporting, the UWV relies heavily on these mostly young doctors: they currently make up almost half of the agency’s practising doctors and carry out about half of the assessments, even though they are still in training.
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What the investigation found
The decision follows an earlier joint investigation by EenVandaag and AD, published in April, into conditions at the UWV in the Amsterdam region. Reporters said they spoke with a large group of trainee doctors, who described an unsafe work culture and an excessively high workload, and that documents they had seen supported those accounts. The doctors spoke anonymously, according to EenVandaag, because they feared reprisals from UWV management.
“Everything shows that there is a fear culture and intimidation here. We regularly have crying colleagues on the work floor and a screaming supervisor,” one trainee told EenVandaag. Others said their training was being pushed aside in favour of clearing the agency’s long waiting lists, describing the atmosphere as “a regime.” The doctors said they had first tried to raise the problems internally, but that this had achieved too little.
The professional association for insurance doctors, NOVAG, has backed the trainees. In letters to the UWV and the RGS, NOVAG said it was not only worried about signals of an unsafe environment and intimidation, but was “particularly concerned about abuse of power.” According to EenVandaag, the UWV declined a request from NOVAG to have the complaints examined by the agency’s own Integrity Office, and NOVAG’s vice-chair, Mirko Bal, said the problems were not limited to Amsterdam.
A penalty for leaving early
Leaving the training is not a straightforward option for many of the doctors. Contracts seen by EenVandaag and AD include a penalty of up to 70,000 euros, payable to the UWV, if a trainee stops the training early or leaves within two years of completing it. As a result, EenVandaag reported, many doctors only leave two years after finishing, when their training contract ends.
Two investigations, and the UWV’s response
The UWV’s training was already under heightened supervision by the RGS. After the reports about the working culture, the regulator opened an additional investigation into the quality and safety of the training. The RGS has stressed that starting an investigation does not mean any conclusions have been drawn, but that the signals are being examined carefully. It has not yet been able to share the results, and has said the first follow-up steps are being taken.
In addition, the UWV itself commissioned the advisory firm KPMG last month to examine the working culture within the organisation. That review will hear staff in the Amsterdam region and in a number of other regions, and is expected to be completed in the autumn.
The UWV has said it takes the signals seriously. Responding to the RGS measures, a spokesperson said the agency was pleased that the September review would go ahead and looked forward to the outcome. On the halt to new trainees, however, the UWV gave a different emphasis from the regulator, saying that until the end of this year no new training places for insurance doctors would start in the Groot-Amsterdam district “partly because the maximum number of training places is filled.”
The stakes
Behind the dispute lies a wider problem. There is a significant shortage of insurance doctors in the Netherlands, and the UWV has itself warned that tens of thousands of people are waiting too long for a WIA assessment. Trainee doctors have said that if the UWV were to lose its accreditation to train, the waiting lists would grow even longer. The UWV has also said it is not solely responsible for the shortage, noting that it had to stop hiring self-employed insurance doctors because of a law on self-employment. Social Affairs Minister Hans Vijlbrief has previously said he was concerned about the reports and urged the UWV to investigate.