In 2020, 129 regions had their total population estimated to be living within 15 minutes driving time of a hospital; this equated to slightly more than 1 in 10 regions within the EU. Most of these were capital or urban regions with relatively high population density.
At the other end of the scale, 89 regions had less than half of their population living within 15 minutes driving time of a hospital. Most of these were sparsely-populated regions often around the periphery of the EU, for example, in southern and eastern EU Member States, particularly the interiors of Spain and Portugal and rural regions of Croatia, Hungary, Poland, Romania and Slovenia. There were also several regions in Sweden where less than half of the population was living within 15 minutes driving time of a hospital.
Looking in more detail, there were 11 regions where less than 10% of their population were living within 15 minutes driving time of a hospital. Five of these were in Poland (Częstochowski, Bytomski, Gliwicki, Rybnicki and Tyski), four were in Romania (Neamţ, Covasna, Mehedinţi and Tulcea) and the other two were in Sweden (Blekinge län and Jämtlands län).
