PHSSR Saudi Arabia 2025

Domain 5: Service delivery Sustainability •There has been a signi ficant growth in the number of hospitals, resulting in an 26.5% increase in the total number of beds from 2012 to 2021. The average waiting time for an outpatient appointment has seen a marked improvement, decreasing from 35 days in 2017 to 13 days in 2021. •The proportion of patients discharged safely from emergency rooms also shows improvement, increasing from 85% in 2017 to 92% in 2021. This positive trend indicates signi ficant advancements in emergency care protocols and patient management strategies. •There are numerous initiatives and standards that aim to improve overall quality of hospital care and patient safety in line with international best practices. •A study of socioeconomic determinants and inequalities on chronic non-communicable diseases (NCDs) found that prevalence varied signi ficantly according to age, gender, education level, income and region of residence, indicating disparities in access to healthcare across different socioeconomic groups. Another study found that uptake of preventive health checks was concentrated among people with greater wealth. These findings suggest that policy makers may need to increase their focus on addressing socioeconomic disparities in access to care. •Vision 2030 seeks to expand the role of primary healthcare centres, with primary care prioritised as a key element of the new Model of Care to tackle the increasing burden of NCDs. In the past two decades, primary health services have improved signi ficantly, this is re flected in patient satisfaction scores of, for example, 71.7% in March 2018 and 75.1% in March 2019. Resilience •Saudi Arabia exhibited high resilience during the pandemic, with all social distancing restrictions lifted within 73 days of the outbreak. •The private healthcare sector played a signi ficant role in reducing the impact of Covid-19, providing critical support to the government in responding to the pandemic. •Despite the overall success of the response, some hospitals faced limited disruptions to services due to the need to prioritise patients with Covid-19 and to minimise the risk of transmission of the virus. The surge in Covid-19 cases also put a strain on hospital capacity, particularly in ICU. Some of this pressure on hospitals was alleviated through the use of telemedicine. •The pandemic accelerated the deployment of novel care delivery methods, such as remote consultations, which reduce the risk of virus transmission and ensure continuity of care. These delivery methods will continue to be valuable tools for clinicians in the remobilisation of health services post-pandemic and in any future pandemic. •The Health Sector Transformation Programme (HSTP) seeks to improve health system resilience and restructure the sector with a focus on primary care, rehabilitation and long-term care. It aims to address challenges such as barriers to public–private partnerships, developing the Saudi workforce, calibrating reimbursement mechanisms to health system goals, and ensuring vulnerable populations have access to high- quality tertiary healthcare. 12 Sustainability and Resilience in the Saudi Arabian Health System The Partnership for Health System Sustainability and Resilience