More than 60% of vacancies for family doctors in Portugal remained unfilled in 2025 after a second recruitment round, opened to fill posts left vacant after the first round, according to data from the Central Administration of the Health System (ACSS).
Of the 142 positions opened in the second phase for General and Family Medicine (MGF), only 50 were filled. In contrast, recruitment in public health fared better, with 15 of 17 vacancies taken.
The figures show little improvement compared to 2024, when the second recruitment round filled just 63 of 225 family doctor posts, while nine of 15 public health positions were occupied.
Each family doctor in Portugal is responsible, on average, for around 1,550 patients. The placements made in this latest round will allow a family doctor to be assigned to at least 77,500 people, more than 37,000 of them in Lisbon and the Tagus Valley, the region considered most in need.
Even there, the shortfall remains stark. Of the 84 family doctor vacancies opened in Lisbon and the Tagus Valley, only 24 were filled, leaving more than 70% of posts vacant.
Regionally, results were uneven. Amadora-Sintra stood out as the local health unit with the strongest recruitment, filling nine of its 12 positions. In the North, 15 of 18 vacancies were filled, while the Centre managed just eight of 29. The situation was particularly acute in the Alentejo, where only two of eight posts were taken, and in the Algarve, where just one of three vacancies was filled.
Despite the setbacks, the ACSS notes that across both recruitment rounds in 2025, a total of 281 family doctor positions were filled nationwide, allowing 435,550 more patients to be assigned a GP.
In public health, only two vacancies remained unfilled in the second round, both outside the major urban centres – one in Guarda, in the Centre, and another in the Upper Alentejo.
Source: LUSA
