The survey was carried out among 2,602 people in March 2026. It found that 67.5 per cent of respondents rated their health as 'good' or 'very good', down from 70.1 per cent in the same period of 2025, a fall of 2.6 percentage points.

Meanwhile, the proportion of people who described their health as 'fair', 'poor' or 'very poor' rose from 29.8 per cent to 32.3 per cent. However, fewer respondents reported living with a chronic illness or long-term health problem. That figure fell from 52.2 per cent in 2025 to 49.5 per cent this year.

The Ministry of Health stressed that these figures come only from the first of three planned survey waves needed to produce the study's fully representative sample. They should therefore be treated as provisional.

Public concern about healthcare waiting lists also worsened. Some 38.3 per cent of respondents said waiting times had deteriorated over the previous 12 months. That compares with 34.1 per cent in the first wave of the 2025 Health Barometer, an increase of 4.2 percentage points.

The proportion of people who believed waiting lists had stayed the same fell from 47.6 per cent to 43.1 per cent. Those who thought they had improved changed only slightly, rising from 9.6 per cent to 10 per cent.

The survey also found a rise in the number of people who had stopped taking a prescription medicine supplied through Spain's public healthcare system because they could not afford it.

Some 6.1 per cent of respondents said they had experienced this in the previous 12 months, up from 4.6 per cent in the first wave of the 2025 Health Barometer, an increase of 1.5 percentage points.

Conversely, the proportion of people who said they had not stopped taking prescribed medicines for financial reasons fell from 93.1 per cent to 91 per cent.