PP proposes €700m mental plan

Alberto Núñez Feijóo used a May 13 event in Madrid to put mental health at the center of the Partido Popular’s health platform, promising a national plan with up to 700 million euros a year in additional funding if the party takes office. The PP said the proposal would add about 10,000 professionals to Spain’s public system over the coming years, including psychiatrists, psychologists and mental-health nurses. Feijóo described shortages of staff and investment as the most urgent gap in the welfare state, according to the party’s statement. The announcement lands alongside an existing national mental-health framework already being rolled out by Spain’s Health Ministry, giving voters two very different scales of spending to compare. ### How big is the PP proposal? The PP said the plan would add between 500 million and 700 million euros a year to mental-health spending and recruit roughly 10,000 extra professionals. In the breakdown released by the party, that includes close to 2,000 psychiatrists, 3,000 psychologists and 5,000 mental-health nurses. (pp.es) May 13 is the date on the PP’s official release, which presented the package as one of six priorities discussed at the launch of a party “Mesa por la Salud Mental.” RTVE, citing agencies, reported Feijóo said the plan would be pursued if he governs. ### What exactly did Feijóo say would change? (pp.es) Feijóo said Spain should move closer to European staffing standards because, in his account, the country is at about half the European average in some mental-health indicators. The PP statement says the plan would expand specialist training places, reinforce primary care, reduce regional disparities in staffing ratios and widen access to psychotherapy. (pp.es) Six priorities listed by the party include a child and adolescent mental-health strategy, more staffing and investment, integration of addiction problems into the mental-health network, a separate suicide-prevention track, broader psychotherapy coverage and a transparency mechanism to measure results. The PP also cited figures including nearly 4 million people with depression in Spain and about 4,000 suicides a year. (pp.es) ### How does this compare with the government’s current plan? Spain’s Health Ministry already has a Mental Health Action Plan for 2025-2027 approved through the Interterritorial Council of the National Health System on April 4, 2025. The official plan document says it was approved by the council and the institutional committee of the national mental-health strategy. (pp.es) The current government framework operates on a much smaller budget line than the PP proposal. Secondary sources summarizing the ministry plan say it is backed by 39 million euros, while on May 12 the cabinet authorized distribution of 39 million euros to regions for mental-health actions and 17.8 million euros for suicide prevention in 2026. ### Why is staffing the center of the debate? (sanidad.gob.es) The PP’s argument is that the system’s main bottleneck is personnel. Feijóo said the “deficit of professionals and the deficit of investment” is the biggest urgent problem for the welfare state, according to the party release. (redisem.es) El País reported Feijóo tied the proposal to more specialist training places and higher public spending, while RTVE said he framed mental health as one of the main health and social challenges of the moment. Those are political claims from the opposition, but they line up with the structure of both the PP proposal and the ministry’s current action plan, which also includes a line dedicated to strengthening human resources. (pp.es) ### What happens next? May 12 is the latest concrete government milestone: the cabinet authorized regional funding for 2026 mental-health and suicide-prevention measures. The PP proposal, by contrast, is an opposition pledge and would require Feijóo to reach government before it could be turned into a national budget commitment. (elpais.com) The next public reference points are already on the record. Spain’s Health Ministry plan covers 2025 through 2027, and the PP has published its own six-point mental-health package under Feijóo’s name dated May 13, 2026. (sanidad.gob.es) (infosalus.com)