Public and private supply of health services by autonomous communities in Spain

Abstract

This chapter summarizes the main territorial inequalities in health care supply, and the related effects on access and use of health care facilities. Firstly, in the field of primary health care, the most notable inequalities refer to the process of introduction of the reform and to complementary services supply, together with the coverage of and access to some health care programs. Secondly, the distribution of hospital beds across regions is far from being uniform, specially with respect to geriatric and psychiatric beds. In addition, profit oriented private care is unequally distributed across territories. Thirdly, the availability of high-tech health care services is remarkably different across regions, although inequalities have been reduced during the last decade. Inequality in long-term care (not only in terms of supply, but also in access and use) is even higher than regional inequalities in health care supply. In addition to these territorial inequalities there are some significant gender inequalities.