Some 2,400 People Await a Continued Care Place as the Health Regulator Calculates a 369-Day Wait for a Long-Stay Bed in Greater Lisbon
The SNS daily count lists 2,385 people waiting for a place in the continued care network. The health regulator puts Greater Lisbon's median wait for a long-stay bed at 369 days in 2025, and an association says the shortage is getting worse. How referral works.
Close to 2,400 people were waiting for a place in Portugal's National Network of Continued Integrated Care (RNCCI, Rede Nacional de Cuidados Continuados Integrados) on Sunday, and the health regulator has calculated that in Greater Lisbon the typical wait for a long-stay bed ran to more than a year in 2025. The network takes people who leave hospital, or who live at home, still too dependent to manage alone: it runs convalescence, rehabilitation and long-stay units, and home care teams.
The monitoring report from the Health Regulation Authority (ERS, Entidade Reguladora da Saúde), dated November 2026 and published on Monday, counts 1,937 people waiting on 31 December 2025, 8.1 percent more than a year earlier. The longest queue was for long-stay and maintenance units (ULDM), with 734 people. The median wait from referral to a free long-stay place was 66 days across the mainland, but 369 days in Greater Lisbon and 41 days in the Centre region.
The regulator warns that slow admission can keep patients in acute hospital beds longer than they need, or see them discharged home or to a social care home when a place in the network was clinically indicated.
What the association says
José Bourdain, president of the National Association of Continued Care (ANCC, Associação Nacional dos Cuidados Continuados), told Lusa that the shortage "got worse, above all in Lisbon and the Tejo Valley", with improvement only in the North and Centre, RTP reported. He said the government could bring closed beds back into the network by paying "a fair value". The association's own September figures put closures at more than 750 beds in five years, 260 of them this year, and it warned in an RTP television report that fewer beds will be available next year unless the government updates the rates it pays.
What the official daily count says
The Health Ministry publishes a daily waiting count on the SNS Transparency Portal. On 8 November 2026 it listed 2,385 people waiting, against 2,222 on the same date in 2025. Of these, 944 were waiting for a long-stay bed, 671 for a medium-stay rehabilitation unit and 621 for a home care team. The count peaked this year at 3,195 on 28 August and has fallen since.
The regional picture is mixed. In the Lisbon and Tejo Valley region the portal counted 752 people waiting, above the end of 2025 but below the 798 of a year ago, so the daily figures do not by themselves confirm the association's view that Lisbon has worsened over the past twelve months.
What it means for you
- You cannot apply directly. Under Portaria 174/2014, a hospital patient is flagged by the ward to the hospital discharge team (EGA, equipa de gestão de altas), ideally within 48 hours of admission. Someone living at home is flagged by health or social care staff at the health centre.
- Assessment comes first. Referral follows a medical, nursing and social assessment of dependency, validated by the local coordinating team where the patient lives.
- Say where you want to go. The rules tell teams to consider proximity to home and, where possible, the patient's preference.
- Ask about costs. Admission to medium-stay and long-stay units requires signing an acceptance of the patient's share of the cost.
Families weighing a private care home while they wait can read our earlier piece on what care homes cost and how social sector fees work. The ERS, which takes complaints about access to care through its website, has a call centre on 309 309 309.
