The SNS24 Health Line Left Nearly Half a Million Callers Waiting Over 30 Minutes in 2025, Eight Times the Year Before

Nearly half a million calls to the SNS24 health line waited more than 30 minutes to be answered in 2025 — roughly eight times as many as the year before — according to a study by the Entidade Reguladora da Saúde (ERS, Health Regulatory Authority). The regulator warned that its own figures "may even underestimate" how bad the delays became.

SNS24 is the telephone triage service of the Serviço Nacional de Saúde (SNS, the national health service): callers describe their symptoms and are advised whether to stay home, visit a health centre, or go to a hospital emergency department. The line is a cornerstone of the government's "Ligar Primeiro, Salvar Vidas" (Call First, Save Lives) project, designed to keep congestion out of overrun emergency rooms.

The ERS review of that project found a service creaking under demand:

• More than 466,000 calls waited over half an hour to be answered in 2025, up from about 58,000 in 2024.
• Average waiting times to reach an operator were roughly ten times longer than a year earlier.
• Around 2.76 million calls — about 68% of the total — were still answered within ten minutes, so the strain was concentrated in a growing tail of very long waits.

The regulator credited the underlying strategy with results even as the phone lines buckled: routing more people to health centres produced "a relative reduction in emergency service demand." The problem, in other words, is not the idea but the capacity to answer the phone when a swelling number of people call it first.

The findings land as the SNS wrestles with strain across the board. Emergency and pre-hospital care are under review, with INEM planning to transfer 54 ambulances to hospital units, a move unions have called a dismantling. Longer-term pressures are building too, from rising childhood obesity to the demographic squeeze that runs through Portugal’s EU-funded reform plans.

What This Means for Expats

• Plan for the wait: SNS24 (dial 808 24 24 24) remains the correct first call for non-emergencies, but be ready for long hold times, especially in the evenings and at weekends. For a true emergency, call 112.
• Have your details ready: Keep your número de utente (SNS user number) to hand to speed up triage once you are connected.
• Know the alternatives: The SNS24 website and app offer symptom guidance and appointment services that can spare you the queue for routine questions.

The regulator's report is likely to sharpen pressure on the Health Ministry to expand call-centre staffing before the winter respiratory season, when demand on the line typically peaks. Whether the answer is more operators, better digital triage, or both, the message from 2025 is blunt: a service built to relieve pressure on hospitals is now straining under pressure of its own.