Waiting times for a first face-to-face contact with an ambulatory mental health centre can also be fairly long. In 2013,37% of patients had to wait one month or more for a first contact with such centres (Vrijens et al., As noted in Section 4, the legislated ceiling on public expenditure on health was reduced from a 4.5% growth rate per year from 2004-12, to 3% in 2013 and 2014, and down to 1.5% since 2015.