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Table 1 The Swedish health care system: basic facts

From: The Swedish duty hour enigma

Total population of Sweden

9.5 million*

Total population of the capital area of Stockholm

2 050 000*

Average number of practising physicians per 1000 population

3.6†

Sources of health care financing

Taxation provides basic primary health care coverage for the entire population; 2.3% of the population have supplementary health insurance†

Primary care

Provided through public health centres: 37% of centres are run by private care companies‡

Specialist services

Provided predominantly through public hospitals†

“The Patient Care Guarantee” (Vårdgaratin)

A national policy aimed at providing patients with primary care within 7 days of expressed need and specialist care within 90 days of referral. In 2009-2010 the policy was successful in 87%-90% of cases§

  1. *Statistics Sweden [4]
  2. †Organisation for Economic Co-Operation and Development [5]
  3. ‡Swedish Competition Authority [6]
  4. §Swedish National Board of Health and Welfare [7]