According to data from the National Health Service transparency portal consulted today, in August 2019, 644,077 people did not have a family doctor. This number increased to a total of 1,675,663 in the last month, a difference of 1,031,586 users.
The same data also indicates that, after a reduction between December 2023 and February of this year, the number of users without an assigned general and family medicine specialist began to rise again in the following months, an increase of about 146,000 people until August.
According to the transparency portal, the total number of users with an assigned family doctor at the end of last month is the lowest since 2016, just over 8.7 million people, while in August 2019 it was around 9.6 million NHS users.
As for the number of users without a family doctor by their own choice, it was only 13,868 in August of this year, whereas in the same month of 2021, it was almost 36,000.
About 10.4 million people were registered in primary health care in August.
The Government will approve on Thursday the decree for the creation of model C family health units, which will be managed by social and private sectors, with the first 20 to be implemented in Lisbon and Tagus Valley, Leiria, and Algarve, where there is a greater shortage of family doctors.
At the end of June, the Government opened about 900 vacancies for general and family medicine, which represent more than 40% of the number of newly trained professionals, with the aim of attracting more professionals to primary health care.
The executive also approved a revision of the doctor placement regime, which provides that the competitions, which were held at national and regional levels, will be the responsibility of the health units.
