Health will reward autonomous communities that reduce their waiting lists with more funding

The time that patients wait to be treated by health professionals has reached worrying figures for a few years. According to data from the third wave of the CIS Health Barometer published this Tuesday, 8.86 days pass from the time a person makes an appointment with their family doctor until they finally see them. But these delays are also experienced in specialty consultations: 39.4 percent of Spaniards wait more than three months to be visited by a specialist doctor. For this reason, the Minister of Health, Mónica García, announced this Wednesday that her department is already working on a model whereby the financing given to the regions has a part conditional on the reduction of waiting lists.

“We are working on the creation of a co-financing fund, similar to the model applied in public transport, which will be conditional on the implementation of specific measures by the autonomous communities to reduce waiting lists,” the minister announced during her appearance before the Health Commission of the Congress of Deputies.

The Ministry of Health also wants to reform the royal decree on waiting lists, as it has already stated on several occasions. García has assured the deputies that the decree “has become obsolete, anachronistic” and with its reform he intends to “guarantee greater traceability, transparency and that the information collected is more useful and detailed.” With this, he emphasized, in addition to better monitoring waiting times in healthcare, the aim is to “design more effective interventions based on reliable and updated data.”

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