Portugal Clears up to 383 Million Euros for the SNS 24 Health Line From 2027 to 2032, With a New International Tender to Follow
A gazette order lets the Health Ministry's shared services commit up to 383.2 million euros plus VAT over five years, about 77 million a year at its peak. Meo runs the line until the end of 2027 under a contract already raised by half.
The government has authorised the Serviços Partilhados do Ministério da Saúde (Health Ministry Shared Services, SPMS) to commit up to 383,184,270.20 euros, plus VAT, to run the SNS 24 contact centre for five years from 2027. SNS 24 is the National Health Service's phone line and digital front door. The authorisation is Portaria n.º 411/2026/2, signed by the Secretaries of State for the Budget and for Health Management and published in the Diário da República (Official Gazette) on Thursday. It took effect on Friday.
The order covers a 60-month contract for technology development, running the operation, communication, auditing and contract management, and the development of digital channels for the line. It caps spending year by year:
- 2027: 37.37 million euros
- 2028 to 2031: 77.45 million euros a year
- 2032: 36.01 million euros
All figures are before VAT, and any amount unspent in one year can be carried into the next.
A tender still to come
A portaria of this kind is the legal step that lets a public body sign a contract running over several budget years. It does not choose an operator. SPMS told Público that the order is for a new procurement procedure now being prepared, with an international public tender expected in the coming months.
The line is currently run by Meo, the Altice group's Portuguese operator. According to contract documents on the public procurement portal cited by ECO, the contract signed in 2023 took effect in March 2024 with a ceiling of 51 million euros over 46 months. An addendum at the end of the first quarter of 2026 raised the price by 50 percent to 76.57 million euros and extended the service to 31 December 2027, or until the money runs out. The new cap is therefore close to five times the enlarged current contract. The comparison is rough, because the new contract runs longer and covers work that the existing one may not, such as new digital channels.
Why demand has grown
The rising bill follows a surge in calls. Under the Ligue Antes, Salve Vidas (Call First, Save Lives) project, patients are asked to phone SNS 24 before going to a hospital emergency department, so the line now sorts a growing share of urgent cases. A study by the Entidade Reguladora da Saúde (Health Regulation Authority, ERS) published in June found that calls answered by the triage service rose by 58.9 percent between 2024 and 2025, but that waiting times rose sharply too, with many more callers waiting over 30 minutes. We reported the regulator's figures in July.
Service levels are already a source of friction with the operator. In December 2025, the then head of SPMS told parliament that 19 penalties had been applied over 21 months for missed waiting-time and answer-rate targets, worth about 1.5 million euros, Lusa reported. The current contract requires 93 percent of calls to be answered within 15 seconds and an average wait under 30 seconds. Working conditions at the call centre have also drawn complaints, including pay docked for breaks, and nurses are due to take SNS 24 calls routed through the 112 emergency dispatch centres.
What it means for callers
Nothing changes for patients yet. SNS 24 remains available on 808 24 24 24 and online, and the current operator stays in place until the end of 2027 unless the budget runs out first. The size of the new commitment does show that the government expects the line to remain the main route into the SNS, and that it is prepared to pay much more to keep waiting times down. Neither the order nor SPMS has said what service targets the next contract will set. That will only be known when the tender documents are published.
