There is good news: the national waiting lists platform is online: a public dashboard, free and accessible to everyone, to know in real time how much you have to wait for exams and visits in Italian public health facilities. It is not the definitive solution, but represents a concrete step towards greater transparency and trust in the national health service.

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The platform allows each citizen to directly consult the data on waiting times, updated monthly by the Regions. An innovative, open and free service, which could mark an important turning point in the relationship between citizens and healthcare. Transparency is the first step towards trust. Those who get sick cannot afford to proceed blindly or rely on word of mouth to find out if a resonance will arrive in a week or six months.

How it works concretely

By selecting a healthcare performance (for example a cardiological visit or magnetic resonance imaging), the actual average waiting times can be displayed for each region, divided by priority classes (urgent, short, deferrable, scheduled), together with the total number of reservations recorded. These official data allow not only to understand the actual waiting times but also to verify whether the system is respecting the timing established by the government.

This tool is useful not only for citizens, but also for health workers, regional managers, unions and associations that deal with the right to health. For the first time, comparable, verifiable and official data on the efficiency of the health system are available. In addition, the platform allows you to monitor some known but often not very visible critical issues, such as the excessive use of festive days for visits, the massive use of intramoenia or the difficulty in quickly accepting urgent performances.

The king is naked

What do we notice from the data loaded on the platform? I wanted to take, as an example of analysis, the data relating to the “bilateral mammography” in the period January-May 2025, divided by priority class that we remember to be U (urgent): within 3 days, B (short): within 10 days, D (deferrable): within 60 days, p (scheduled): within 120 days. For each class the waiting times expressed in days for: from (1st quarter), median (50%), to (3rd quartile) are provided.

Jump immediately to the eye (see table) the systematic overcoming of the times guaranteed for priorities D and P. 75% of patients in these categories awaits beyond the legal limits, in particular for the P -Class Pylat where you get more than double the maximum allowed time (320 days against 120). Well for the P -Class (scheduled within 120 days) we have a total of reservations of 301,854 (the highest share, a median of the waiting time between 62 and 110 days and the maximum, at 3rd quartile, from 208 to 320 days which is a period widely out of the threshold). About 90% of the mammograms are in class P and it is the band, and so it also happens for other performance, in which the collapse of the system is concentrated. We therefore have a disproportionate and not correctly managed load. Even the urgencies are not always respected since the waiting times for emergencies exceed 3 days in the months of March and April and it is a serious signal, because here are potentially vital diagnosis here, however, for classes U and B, the media are remaining within the legal limits.

What these data tell us

These data put us in front of the fact that the system seems unable to cope with the amount of patients who require a diagnosis in clinically useful times. The formal respect for urgencies and short priorities is only partial and the queues (3rd quartile) show systemic delays. This suggests that only part of the urgencies is truly managed in a timely manner. We also see worse trends from January to May and for all classes, a progressive increase in the maximum times month after month.

And if the system does not hold the load and worsens month after month this is a sign of a non -episodic collapse. I would like to reiterate that those who seem only numbers are actually missing diagnoses, days of anxiety for thousands of women or tumors that risk being discovered late. Respect for times cannot be an optional.

The lists of shame

The Court of Auditors, through the Prosecutor General Silvestri, pointed the finger at the shame of the waiting lists, underlining the need to re -evaluate human capital in the health sector. Adapting the remuneration and enhancing the role of healthcare personnel would, in fact, be determining to break down the waiting lists and ensure uniformity and quality of care throughout the national territory.

“The revaluation of human capital would also be functional to the reduction of shameful, for a civilized country, a phenomenon of waiting lists, while guaranteeing the best uniformity of performance throughout the national territory”.

Pio Silvestri, pg Corte dei Auditi

A digital platform alone does not solve the structural problems of the National Health Service, does not automatically shorten the waiting lists nor increases health personnel. However, it is a first essential step towards transparency. In the next updates, the number of monitored performance will be expanded, making the service even more useful.

At a time when the crisis of the National Health Service appears increasingly evident, initiatives such as this represent important signals for citizens. Because the cure, to work, needs confidence, and trust feeds on truth.