Did you know that more than one in ten patients in the United Kingdom who need to see a specialist wait more than a year? And in Slovenia, patients have to wait almost two years – 667 days – just to have a hip replacement surgery?
In a number of European countries, we have to wait years for treatment. This is taking a serious toll on patients, experts warn. Euronews Health takes a closer look at waiting times in different areas.
Waiting longer than a year to see a highly specialized specialist is an everyday reality for some patients across Europe. The UK stands out the most: 11% of patients reported that they waited more than a year for an appointment with a specialist. In France and Germany, this figure is 2%.
These data are from the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) report “Health in Figures 2025”, which reveals one of the most pressing health policy issues in Europe: long waiting times for care.
These figures are among the most unfavorable in Europe. But the waiting crisis is much deeper than the situation in just two countries.
“Delaying the expected effects of treatment means that patients continue to live with pain and limitations for longer than they would have had to, and this can worsen treatment outcomes after an intervention,” the report says.
So which European countries are keeping patients waiting the longest? How serious is the problem on the continent? And how long do you actually have to wait for surgery?
The OECD report records long waiting times in different segments of healthcare. Even an appointment with a general practitioner or nurse in a number of European countries in 2023 takes at least a week.
But shorter waiting times are by no means insignificant either. In France, more than two in five patients (43%) wait between two months and a year for an appointment, followed by the UK (32%), Sweden (29%) and Germany (22%).
Months waiting for cataract surgery
A similar pattern is seen with cataract surgery. Here we estimate the proportion of patients who wait more than three months from the time they are seen by a specialist to the start of treatment.
In Norway in 2024, four out of five people who needed cataract surgery waited more than three months (81%). Finland is not far behind with 71%.
Most patients also waited more than three months in the UK (58%), Portugal (58%) and Spain (53%). In Poland (13%), Hungary (17%), Sweden (22%) and Italy (27%), the proportions were much lower.
Hip arthroplasty: in Slovenia, the waiting time is almost two years
The median waiting time for hip replacement surgery is equally revealing. In Slovenia in 2024, the median waiting time was 667 days, i.e. almost two years.
In Poland it also exceeded a year – 343 days, followed by Hungary (209 days) and the UK (174 days). These are median values, which means that half of the patients waited even longer than indicated.
“Waiting times for routine care are a major challenge for health policy in many systems, where patients have to wait weeks or months to access services,” wrote Luigi Siciliani of York University in a recent article in the European Journal of Public Health.
Why do waiting times vary so much between countries? According to the OECD, waiting lists are usually caused by an imbalance between the demand for and supply of health services.
Siciliani notes that differences in waiting times have much to do with varying system capacity, funding decisions, availability of medical staff, and a mismatch between the growing demand for health care – amid an aging population and technological advances – and system capacity.
According to Eurostat, long waiting times are another important cause of unmet need for emergency care.
Timeframes for elective surgeries in Moldova – up to 1 year
Cataract removal under insurance is scheduled. In 2025, a record 14,200 operations were performed in Moldova. For the current year 2026, the NCMS has budgeted for 14,600 interventions. The average waiting time for the distribution to a doctor is about 1 year (in district hospitals the queue moves faster – up to 6 months). At the same time, the patient can choose for a free operation either a state or one of the private clinics contracted by the NKMS.
The queues for knee and hip prosthetics, which used to stretch for several years, have been reduced to a period of less than 1 year. In 2025, more than 7,200 such free surgeries were performed, and the plan for 2026 has been increased to 7,460 interventions.
For patients with suspected cancer, the timeframe for initial screening has been reduced from several months to a few weeks. The waiting time for advanced tomography (CT/MRI) for this category of citizens has been reduced to 3-5 days. But a critical point remains in the treatment of cancer patients. Due to the shortage of linear gas pedals at the Institute of Oncology (only 3 machines are working for the whole country), cancer patients have to wait up to 5 weeks for their turn for radiotherapy.
In emergency cases, in acute conditions and life-threatening situations, medical assistance in Moldova is provided immediately and free of charge to all citizens (even without a policy). It is usually possible to see a family doctor within 1-3 days. One has to wait longer to see narrow specialists in district polyclinics due to staff shortage (hundreds of vacancies for family physicians, anesthesiologists and radiologists remain open in the country).
At the same time, the commercial sector of medicine in Moldova is so developed and its prices are noticeably lower than in Europe that Chisinau has become a popular destination of medical tourism for EU citizens (mainly for dentistry, plastic surgery and IVF), where waiting time is reduced to a minimum.
