"The rate of non-urgent care in Portugal rose by 3.3 percentage points between 2019 and 2021, reaching 40.6%", says the Health System Performance and Impact Assessment Report (RADIS) released in the VI edition of the National Health Convention (CNS).

According to the document, which will be released annually, the Algarve is the region with the highest rate of non-urgent care: 8.2 percentage points above the Portuguese average in 2021.

The region that had the lowest non-urgent care rate in 2021 was the Porto metropolitan area with 29.3%, in contrast to Alto Alentejo with 49.1% and Lisbon and Vale do Tejo with 43.4%, according to the document.

The report also highlights that 11.2% of those enrolled in Primary Health Care in 2021 did not have a family doctor, up four percentage points compared to the previous year.

The North region has the lowest percentage of those enrolled in health centres without a family doctor (2.8% in 2021), in contrast to the Lisbon and Tagus Valley region (20.8%) and Algarve (16, 4%). The Alentejo region has 9.8% of the inhabitants without a family doctor assigned and the Center 7%.

The report states that all regions showed a negative evolution in this indicator.