The Solution to Relieve Pressure on Spain's Public Healthcare System

In countries like the United Kingdom and Spain, the saturation of public healthcare has led to an increase in collaboration with private hospitals, a key strategy to reduce long waiting lists.

Therefore, in countries like the United Kingdom, it has been decided to combine public healthcare with private healthcare. This way, speeding up procedures and reducing waiting times.

This is a practice that Spain has been carrying out for years, especially in Madrid. There, the combination of public and private management has significantly reduced delays in surgical interventions.

Waiting lists in Spain are an increasingly alarming problem. By the end of 2023, the Ministry of Health reported that more than 800,000 patients are waiting to be operated on in the public system, with an average wait of 128 days. Among the most affected specialties, trauma surgery records the longest delays, exceeding 140 days of waiting. Additionally, both general surgery and ophthalmology also have high waiting times.

There are notable differences in waiting times between Spain's autonomous communities. While Madrid stands out as the region with the best results, with an average of 50 days of surgical waiting, other communities like Catalonia, Castilla-La Mancha, and Extremadura exceed 150 days. These disparities reflect the variability in the management of healthcare resources and the adoption of collaboration models between the public and private sectors.

The Community of Madrid has achieved the lowest waiting times thanks to a mixed management model, which combines public hospitals with a public-private collaboration system. This strategy has been key to reducing waiting lists and offering more agile care to patients. Institutions like the Jiménez Díaz Foundation, Rey Juan Carlos (in Móstoles), Infanta Elena (in Valdemoro), or Villalba, all part of the Madrid Health Service (Sermas), have played a crucial role in alleviating the burden on the healthcare system and ensuring faster access to medical services.

Proponents of the mixed management model point out that this approach favors greater efficiency by allowing smoother coordination between hospitals. This contributes to faster patient referrals while reducing congestion in large public centers. Additionally, the more flexible organizational structure with fewer bureaucratic procedures improves hospitals' ability to adjust to the demand for medical care.

Meanwhile, they highlight that the incorporation of technological tools like telemedicine and digitization has optimized both appointment management and remote consultations, as well as improved the use of operating rooms. Thanks to these advances, mixed management hospitals have achieved greater efficiency, reducing referrals to other centers and offering more agile care compared to traditional hospitals.