La Caixa will provide 1.6 million per year to fund hospital psychosocial care

The Madrid Health Service (SERMAS) and the “la Caixa” Foundation of Banking Savings and Pensions of Barcelona have signed an agreement to maintain psychosocial care for patients with advanced illness and their families within the hospital and primary care settings. The foundation will provide 1,600,000 euros annually for this program, and the agreement generates no financial obligations for SERMAS. The text, signed on September 18, 2026, is published in the BOCM no. 248, of October 17, 2026, in section I.D (Announcements) of the Ministry of Health, with reference BOCM-20261017-12.

Continuity of a framework that expired in 2025

The agreement provides continuity to the Framework Collaboration Agreement formalized by both parties on February 5, 2021, which expired on February 5, 2025. Its objective is to “minimize the impact of hospitalization on boys and girls” and improve the quality of life for people with advanced illnesses, especially those in the most vulnerable situations, complementing the healthcare provided by palliative care professionals.

The collaboration is structured through three of the foundation’s programs: CiberCaixa Hospitalaria, the Program for the comprehensive care of people with advanced illnesses, and the End of Life and Loneliness Program. The first consists of recreational spaces within hospitals; the second is implemented through private non-profit entities that provide the psychosocial care teams; the third seeks to alleviate suffering caused by loneliness through volunteering.

The agreement is administrative in nature and is governed by Law 40/2015, and is excluded from Law 9/2017 on Public Sector Contracts pursuant to article 6.2.

Distribution of commitments and financing

The third clause details the financial effort assumed by the financial entity:

• 27,500 euros annually for the CiberCaixa Hospitalaria Program.
• 1,600,000 euros annually for the Program for the comprehensive care of people with advanced illnesses.
• Zero euros for SERMAS, which assumes no financial obligations derived from the agreement.

For its part, SERMAS commits to facilitating the access of psychosocial care teams (EAPS) to the palliative care devices of its network and to maintaining the CiberCaixa spaces in the La Paz and Ramón y Cajal University Hospitals. The foundation assumes the financial contribution, the training of EAPS professionals, the creation of informative materials, and the semi-annual submission of progress data to the Regional Coordination Office for Palliative Care.

Where the psychosocial teams operate

EAPS, composed of psychologists and social workers, provide support to people with palliative needs and their families across various healthcare settings. The agreement lists the intended destinations:

• Home Palliative Care Support Teams (ESAPD).
• Hospital Palliative Support Teams (ESH).
• Acute Palliative Care Units.
• Other services where patients with advanced diseases and palliative needs are located.

Personnel from the collaborating entities maintain an exclusive legal link with those entities, have no contractual relationship with SERMAS, and their activity is complementary, without substituting or interfering with the work of the center’s healthcare professionals.

Validity, monitoring, and termination

The agreement will be in effect for four years from its signing and may be extended for up to four additional years by written agreement, unless express notice is given two months in advance. Monitoring is the responsibility of a Joint Monitoring Commission that will meet at least once a year, with ordinary notice of 15 days and extraordinary notice of 24 hours.

Causes for termination include mutual agreement, breach of commitments—following a prior request and a two-month deadline—and supervening impossibility, with no provision for damages. The text also incorporates data protection obligations in accordance with the GDPR and Organic Law 3/2018, and minor protection guarantees according to Organic Law 8/2021.

The agreement is signed by the Vice-Minister of Health and Director General of SERMAS, Laura Gutiérrez Barreno, and by the deputy director general of the foundation, Marc Simón Martínez.

The continuity of these teams comes after nearly twenty months without a valid conventional framework, and does so with the full cost assumed by the private entity. For patients with advanced disease and their families, the agreement guarantees psychological, social, and spiritual accompaniment that Madrid’s public healthcare receives without expenditure, in a field—that of palliative care—where this support is provided alongside care teams and not in their place.

Source: BOCM, no. 248, October 17, 2026, section I.D (Announcements), pp. 202-210 (official reference: BOCM-20261017-12).