The Socialist Party parliamentary group wants access to all documents relating to the procurement process for ambulances for INEM, citing the “opacity of the information shared”, according to a motion submitted today.
Socialist Party requests all documentation on INEM ambulance procurement tender
Monday, 12 January 2026RSS
Context & Explainers
Luís Cabral is the president of INEM (Instituto Nacional de Emergência Médica), the agency that coordinates Portugal’s pre‑hospital emergency services and medical dispatch for 112 calls. In the recent story he said delays were caused by stretchers being held up in hospitals, which can tie up ambulances and reduce the system’s ability to respond to new emergencies.
ESPAP is the Shared Services Entity of the Public Administration (Entidade de Serviços Partilhados da Administração Pública). It handles central procurement and other shared services for state bodies, and in this case it awarded a public tender launched last year to buy 275 vehicles for INEM (Instituto Nacional de Emergência Médica) to three economic operators.
The eight‑minute response‑time standard is the target maximum time INEM sets for emergency medical teams to reach life‑threatening calls, typically in urban areas. INEM (Instituto Nacional de Emergência Médica) uses it as a performance goal, but traffic, narrow roads and long rural distances often make actual response times much longer.
The National Institute of Medical Emergency (Instituto Nacional de Emergência Médica), known as INEM, coordinates Portugal’s pre-hospital emergency care, ambulance dispatch and medical response to 112 calls. It matters to expats because INEM is responsible for ambulance response times and on-scene care — incidents like the reported three-hour wait in Seixal can trigger investigations, affect public confidence and influence how quickly you can expect help in an emergency.
Miguel Soares de Oliveira is a doctor who served as president of INEM (Instituto Nacional de Emergência Médica), Portugal's national institute for medical emergencies; he was appointed last summer and has now resigned. He declined to say whether his departure is linked to moving emergency medical training to outside providers, a change that could affect ambulance services and training arrangements.
