Carlos Cortes, head of the Order of Doctors, told RTP Antenna 1 that the system wasn't ready, mentioning that they don't yet have an instruction manual made for it. Overall, he thinks it's for the best that this delay ended up happening.

A new date for the waiting list management system is still to be announced, but with around two hundred thousand patients currently on these waiting lists, it's hoped that it can be sooner rather than later.

Clinical priority

Concerns were also raised by the Order of Doctors around access conditions, clinical priority, and patient traceability for those awaiting smaller surgeries. In order to address this third issue, the union has proposed the creation of a committee to refine the term small surgery to clarify its application.

According to provisional data from the SNS’s Transparency Portal, as of May 2026 there were 278,394 patients on the Surgery Sign-Up List. Out of those, 87,246, roughly a third, have been on the waiting list for over 180 days.