Mónica García praises Spain's Primary Care model at the World Health Organization

Within the framework of this international meeting, García took part in the High Level Event on Primary Care, organised by the European Observatory for Health of the WHO-Euro, where she confirmed that Spain will participate in a WHO platform to publicise its Primary Care model and promote collaboration and partnership between participants.

The WHO Demonstration Platform "will not only strengthen our own improvement efforts, but will also contribute significantly to the advancement of primary care at regional and global levels," said the minister during her speech at the forum. In this regard, she stressed that Spain has a solid primary care model with more than four decades of tradition and leadership in the transformation of its model.

For this reason, "its decentralised model of government and its various initiatives in the autonomous communities make it an ideal host for showcasing best practices in primary care", she said. She also stated that "Spain's international recognition as a leader in Primary Care further underlines its suitability to host the demonstration platform".

The main strengths of the model being provided, she stressed, are: "universality, equity and gratuity of the service; community orientation; decentralisation; digitalisation; and strong multidisciplinary teams". These factors lead to one of the lowest rates of unmet need and avoidable hospital admissions in the EU.

"The primary care model in Spain allows individuals, families and communities to be cared for in a comprehensive, close and continuous manner over time, reaching the entire population, regardless of their socio-economic level, which is why it is fundamental for equity in health," he said.

This enables greater effectiveness and efficiency in caring for the health of the population, which is essential in a context of high disease burden associated with ageing, chronic diseases, dependency and social inequality.

However, the Minister for Health stressed that primary care has very important challenges, especially after the pandemic. To address them, the Primary and Community Care Action Plan was implemented.

This Plan was structured around several lines of action, within which the implementation of projects at the regional level is framed. This includes the improvement of clinical management processes, the expansion and renovation of diagnostic equipment in health centres, IT development, training of professionals or the improvement of infrastructures in health centres and health and emergency services, all of which are agreed actions backed by the best available evidence.

In this context, "we need to continue working on strengthening the capacity of Primary Care to make the Health System more resilient and to improve the care of the population", according to Mónica García.

Non official translation