New Portal Lets Portugal's Patients Pick Their Surgery Venue

For anyone in Portugal who has spent weeks refreshing the SNS 24 app to check whether a specialist appointment has finally been scheduled, change is coming sooner than many expected. A new digital gateway, baptised SINACC, promises to let every utente follow their place in line, and—if deadlines slip—pick the hospital that will treat them, whether it belongs to the public, social or private network. Officials say the tool will slash red tape; critics counter it will only work if chronic staffing and funding gaps are addressed.

Why this matters now

Long before the pandemic, Portuguese hospitals were struggling with spiralling waiting lists; by mid-2024 almost 1 M people were still hoping for a first specialty consultation. The new portal tries to enforce the legal pledge that no one should wait beyond the maximum guaranteed response time. Once a patient reaches 75 % of that limit without an appointment, the system will trigger an alert and unlock the right to switch providers. For families in regions such as Alentejo or the interior, where journeys to Lisbon or Porto are common, that power of choice could mean fewer overnight stays and lower travel bills.

The nuts and bolts of SINACC

Behind the interface, artificial intelligence tools will sift through scheduling data to flag anomalies—"ghost" appointments, price hikes or sudden jumps in a hospital’s list. When a patient logs in, they will see their real-time queue position, the clock counting down to the legal deadline, and a map of alternative hospitals with available slots. If their original unit admits it cannot comply, the utente can instantly rebook surgery or consultation elsewhere, with the Serviço Nacional de Saúde covering the invoice. Local Unidades de Saúde may also pre-emptively redirect patients if internal forecasts show capacity will be outstripped.

Priority cases under the microscope

Not all waits are equal. Under the revamped rules, anything labelled "urgent"—most oncology operations, selected cardiology procedures and rapid diagnostic biopsies—must happen inside 30 days of medical referral. Every other elective act falls under a cap of 6 months. A dedicated workflow will track the entire oncology pathway from first suspicion to chemo or radiotherapy, with the government committing to a ceiling of 62 days for that full journey, mirroring international good practice. By collapsing four former priority tiers into just "urgent" and "normal", the ministry hopes to cut confusion and eliminate opportunities to game the system.

Calendar: from pilots to nationwide rollout

Health Minister Ana Paula Martins unveiled the project after an October 2025 Cabinet meeting. Three hospitals have been quietly piloting SINACC since mid-September, stress-testing data security and usability. A phased expansion is planned: early 2026 will see the first regional urgency hubs—starting in the Setúbal peninsula—integrated, while Centros de Elevado Desempenho in Obstetrics and Gynaecology are due to adopt the same dashboard, linking staff incentives to productivity and patient satisfaction. Full national coverage is scheduled before New Year’s Eve 2025, financed largely by Portugal’s slice of the EU Recovery and Resilience Facility.

Funding dilemmas and workforce strains

Medical associations are not openly attacking the portal itself, but they warn that without stable budgets the platform risks becoming a glossy façade. The Order of Physicians has already criticised cost-cutting instructions for 2026, arguing they undermine the ethical imperative to treat. Meanwhile the Independent Doctors’ Union lists shortages from Algarve to Vila Franca de Xira that leave emergency rooms on the brink. If hospitals curtail overtime or close wards to balance accounts, the shiny new choice mechanism may simply route patients to equally congested facilities.

Digital health beyond scheduling

SINACC is only the latest brick in a wider e-health overhaul. Over the past 2 years, the SNS 24 app has grown from a prescription viewer to a portal for primary-care bookings, test results and vaccination certificates. The new module will sit alongside those services, and officials hint at future add-ons such as secure messaging with specialists, electronic second opinions and AI-driven symptom triage—features already common in Nordic countries. Embedding them in everyday practice, however, will demand robust cyber-security, uniform electronic records and digital literacy training for both staff and patients.

Could it finally shorten the queue?

The government has avoided setting hard percentage targets after previous pledges proved optimistic. Still, a summer 2024 blitz dubbed OncoStop managed to cut oncology backlogs by 30 % in just five weeks when extra operating-theatre hours were financed. That episode suggests capacity exists if money and manpower align. Analysts therefore see SINACC less as a magic bullet and more as a transparency lever—forcing managers to confront bottlenecks in plain sight and empowering citizens to move if nothing changes. Whether that pressure translates into sustained gains depends on the next state budget, collective-bargaining rounds and the appetite of private providers to take on overflow at public rates. For now, at least, the days of waiting in the dark should be numbered.