The waiting list for people undergoing public health surgery is not growing but is stagnating as much as possible. In June 2024, 848,340 patients were waiting to enter an operating room, around 1,000 fewer than six months previously, according to the latest data published by the Ministry of Health, which provides figures twice a year.
The number remains very high, but this is the first time in three years that the list does not continue to grow. In addition, the average waiting time between prescription of the operation and its completion decreased by seven days (from 128 to 121). However, one in five patients (20.4%) still have to wait more than six months.
The largest delays are concentrated in Plastic Surgery (236 days), Neurosurgery (189) and Angiology and Vascular Surgery (148) while the specialties of Cardiac Surgery, Dermatology and Ophthalmology record the shortest delays with respectively 63, 65 and 84 days. There is a series of procedures for which the ministry sets a waiting period. But for knee, hip or cataract prostheses, these deadlines are not respected in all patients.
A waiting working group
Health audits not only waits for surgical procedures, but also the time until a patient is seen by a specialist. In June 2024, almost 84 people out of 1,000 in Spain were on this list, two points more than in December last year. More than half (54.6%) have to wait more than sixty days and the average waiting time reaches 94 days. The specialties with the most delays are neurology (125 days), dermatology (118) and traumatology (101). At the opposite end of the scale are general surgery (48), gynecology (58) and cardiology (68).
The figures, even if they have not deteriorated, are far from the government’s commitments. The two parties that make up the coalition, the PSOE and Sumar, decided to limit the waiting times for the specialist to 60 days – today less than half respect this deadline – and to a maximum of 120 days in the case of a surgical operation.
In April, the ministry created a working group to diagnose the situation of waiting lists, reduce them and “ensure that they do not constitute a problem of access to the national health system”. The minister of the sector, Mónica García, defended that it was necessary to “shed light” on the data because there are “still photos that often do not correspond to the perception of citizens’ expectations”.
The current measurement system is 20 years old and experts have been warning for some time that it fails to adequately describe the situation. For example, no data is provided on the time required to attend a first consultation in psychology, psychiatry or oncology. The ministry also does not publish how long you have to wait to have an X-ray, ultrasound or CT scan. There is no consistent information on diagnostic tests.
The data published twice a year also details delays in each autonomous community. Aragon (122 days), Andalusia (118) and Catalonia (117) occupy the worst positions. Asturias and Cantabria, for their part, are the region that recorded the highest rate of citizens awaiting an operation in June.
Chart Victoria Olivierès.
