It currently stands at 3.5 days in Mallorca, 4.4 in Menorca and 3.1 in Ibiza.

In the last four months, patients’ waiting time for a face-to-face consultation with a family doctor has been halved in primary care in the Balearic Islands: the average waiting time has been shortened to 3.5 days in Mallorca, 4.4 days in Menorca and 3.1 days in Ibiza.

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Family doctor

During this period, during which the incidence of COVID-19 has fallen, intense work has been done to improve citizens’ access to health centres by increasing the number of professionals working in primary care, making new tools available to citizens such as InfoSalutConnecta, the Appointments app or Bitcita, and implementing improvements related to professionals to recognise extraordinary activity and optimise management.

Specifically, in Mallorca the average waiting time for a face-to-face consultation with the family doctor has gone from 7.3 days on 1 November 2022 to 3.5 days on 31 January 2023; the average waiting time for telephone consultations with the family doctor has gone from 7.1 days to 4 days. On the other hand, in Menorca, the waiting time for a face-to-face consultation was 7 days and has been reduced to 4.4 days, while the telephone consultation was 4.5 days and has gone to 3.8 days. Finally, in Ibiza, it has gone from 5.7 to 3.1 days, while for telephone visits it was 5.2 days and has been reduced to 3.5.

These results show the increased activity of primary care to reduce waiting times for patients. Throughout 2022, 4,309,625 family medicine consultations, 675,850 paediatrics consultations and 3,608,039 nursing consultations were attended. In total, 8,593,514 consultations were carried out in health centres over the last year.

It should be remembered that the Health Service is also carrying out an ambitious primary care infrastructure plan to improve patient care and the working environment for professionals. With this goal in mind, 80.8 million euros have been earmarked for various projects in Mallorca, including construction work on the Nuredduna (Artà) and Pollença health centres, and the Bons Aires, Pere Garau and Son Ferriol health centres in Palma, as well as the new basic units in Consell, Montuïri, Sant Joan and Santa Margalida. Other primary care centres such as the CS Emili Darder (Palma) and the UBS Portocolom and Sant Llorenç des Cardassar are also being remodelled on an ad hoc basis. In Menorca, the refurbishment project is underway at the CS Canal Salat in Ciutadella, and in Ibiza at the CS es Viver.