Proposal to make the health card work nationwide in Spain

Automatic summary, not yet reviewed

1. The bill would make the individual health card valid and usable throughout Spain, not just in the region that issued it. To do this, it amends the Law on cohesion and quality of the National Health System.
2. The Ministry of Health would have to guarantee a national database with the basic information of people covered by the National Health System. It would generate a single personal identification code and help clean up cardholder records.
3. The bill would allow medical records to be consulted from any center of the National Health System and also to be understood. To do this, it amends the basic Law on patient autonomy.
4. Patients would have the right to have their medical record written in Spanish, even if it is also written in another co-official language. Health professionals would have the right to have their patients' medical records in Spanish.
5. The Ministry of Health would have to adopt technical and regulatory measures as soon as possible to set up a system guaranteeing the full validity of the health card, in physical and virtual form, and the effective interoperability of medical records.
6. The law would take effect on the first day of the fiscal year after its publication in the Official State Gazette (Boletín Oficial del Estado).

Who it affects

• Patients who travel or receive care outside their autonomous community: They could use their health card and access their medical record at any center in Spain.
• Health professionals: They could consult and understand their patients' medical records in Spanish from any center of the National Health System.
• People living in communities with a co-official language: Their medical record would always be written in Spanish as well.
• Ministry of Health and autonomous communities: They would have to set up the technical systems and databases needed to make everything work nationwide.

Words worth knowing

Tarjeta sanitaria individual (TSI)

Card that shows a person's basic details to access public healthcare in Spain.

Interoperabilidad (interoperability)

The ability of different systems to work together: here, that a patient's medical record can be consulted from any health center.

Historia clínica (medical record)

Set of documents with a patient's data and medical history.

Lenguas cooficiales (co-official languages)

Languages that are official along with Spanish in some regions, such as Catalan, Basque, Valencian or Galician.

Proposición de ley (bill)

A text proposed by members of Congress to become a law. It is not approved yet.

It summarizes the text as it was introduced. It is written by artificial intelligence and may contain mistakes: the official text is what counts. Read the official text · How we make summaries