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The Health Ministry includes all feasible improvements requested by healthcare professionals in the new Statute

Dec 27, 2025 | Actualidad, Current affairs, Featured, Interview, Portada, Post, Revista Lloseta, Thursday Daily Bulletin, Tradition

The Ministry of Health has completed the draft of the new Statute for healthcare personnel, incorporating every proposal that falls within its legal authority. The document is the result of more than 60 technical and political meetings with unions, strike committees, autonomous communities and professional organisations.

The aim is to strengthen cohesion across the National Health System, avoid territorial inequalities, improve workforce mobility and ensure unified professional standards. The Ministry considers that the draft reaches the maximum legal development allowed under a national basic law, without infringing regional powers. Delaying its approval due to demands outside this framework would mean missing a long-awaited opportunity for reform.

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1 The Health Ministry includes all feasible improvements requested by healthcare professionals in the new Statute. Key improvements in the new Statute
2 What the Statute cannot regulate

The Health Ministry includes all feasible improvements requested by healthcare professionals in the new Statute. Key improvements in the new Statute

  • Greater job stability: mandatory recruitment exams every two years, fully digitalised processes and new controls over temporary employment.
  • Guaranteed annual transfers: through a permanent, open competition system.
  • Limits to excessive workload: weekly maximum of 45 hours and activation of the Prevention Service when excessive hours are detected.
  • Reform of on-call shifts:
    • Maximum duration reduced to 17 hours (previously 24).
    • Mandatory rest times before and after each shift.
    • Limits on weekly on-call duties and reinforcement of rest entitlement.
  • Expanded protections: including pregnancy, illness, childcare and workers aged over 55.
  • Enhanced work–life balance: regulated flexibility, advance notice of schedules and mandatory Equality Plans.
  • Improved rest rules: recognised paid breaks, obligatory compensation within 14 days and clear regulation of post-shift rest.
  • Workforce planning: obligation to adjust staffing levels when overload is detected.
  • Updated professional classification: aligned with current healthcare education (MECU/MECES) without salary impact.
  • Strengthened health surveillance: mandatory actions by the Prevention Service when limits are exceeded or in exceptional situations.
  • Formal recognition of training, teaching and research within professional duties.
  • Broader collective bargaining: including handover time, time-tracking and equality measures.
  • Framework for early retirement coefficients: enabling requests for professions with high physical or emotional burden.
  • Participatory legislative process open to parliamentary amendments.

What the Statute cannot regulate

Several issues fall outside the Ministry’s authority:

  • Internal organisational details are managed by autonomous communities.
  • Specific salary amounts or pay supplements.
  • Early retirement decisions are exclusive to Social Security.
  • Setting a mandatory 35-hour workweek.
  • Direct control over shift distribution or on-call planning.
  • Ensuring a reduction in temporary employment without regional implementation.
  • Overly detailed rules that could limit regional autonomy.

The Ministry reiterates its commitment to improving working conditions within the existing legal framework and highlights the collective responsibility to advance a reform essential for the modernisation and cohesion of the public health system.