New rules for the SESPA transfer competition: a single annual process

The Management Directorate of the Health Service of the Principality of Asturias (SESPA) has modified the general rules of the open and periodic transfer competition for statutory personnel through the Resolution of October 1, 2026, published in the Official Gazette of the Principality of Asturias (BOPA) no. 195, of October 8, 2026, with official reference 2026-08153. The text reduces the annual voluntary mobility processes to a single one, eliminates the one-year residency requirement to be eligible to compete, and calls for an extraordinary cycle for the 2026 fiscal year. The regulation modifies the Resolution of November 27, 2018, which approved the rules in effect until now.

A single annual process and the end of the residency year

The resolution argues that the measures adopted since 2018 have corrected the professional deficit and the high rate of temporary employment that affected certain centers and areas. After two annual mobility processes since 2019, most permanent staff entitled to mobility would have already obtained a destination; therefore, a single call per year is considered sufficient and proportionate.

The changes affect four rules of Annex I:

• Second Rule (periodicity): the competition will have a single call, permanent validity, and annual periodicity for offer and adjudication. The cycle begins on the first day of August and includes applications registered until July 31.
• Fourth Rule (requirements): requirements must be met at the start of the cycle and maintained until the assumption of office; failure to provide accreditation implies exclusion.
• Seventh Rule (scoring scale): merits accrued until July 31 of the cycle year are valued, with 10 calendar days to update them after the publication of the vacancy offer.
• Ninth Rule (resolution): the final resolution of the ordinary competition will be published before March 1 of the following year.

Permanent statutory personnel of the same category and specialty—or of a category declared equivalent according to Royal Decree 184/2015, of March 13—who provide services or have a reserved position in the National Health System, as well as permanent personnel in a status other than active without a reserved position, may participate voluntarily. Those coming from voluntary leave must prove two years of residency in that status.

New health map and destination coding

The modification is based on Decree 86/2025, of June 23, which approves the health map of the Principality and reduces the health areas to three, and on the Agreement of March 30, 2026, of the Governing Council, which adapts the organic staff to this new organization.

Annex III, containing the new staff coding, will be published on the Astursalud corporate portal (www.astursalud.es). Once published, the previous position codes in the application https://procesomilidad.sespa.es will be converted ex officio and automatically.

2026 Extraordinary Cycle with deadlines reduced by half

The resolution extraordinarily convenes the 2026 mobility cycle, which will include all unresolved requests registered and formally submitted by October 15, 2026. For this cycle, the staff coding prior to the new health map will be used, and merits accrued up to July 31, 2026, will be assessed.

As the resolution of the procedure coincides with the completion of selection processes in several categories, the urgent processing of Article 33 of Law 39/2015, of October 1, is applied, with the following reduction in deadlines:

• 5 calendar days to modify the selection of positions or the order of preference after the publication of the offer on Astursalud.
• 8 business days to submit allegations against the provisional lists published in the BOPA.
• 15 business days, in the ordinary procedure, to appeal against the provisional resolution.

Regarding the offer of positions, following Royal Decree 101/2025, of February 18, and the Government Council Agreement of November 17, 2025, the positions for Clinical Analysis and Clinical Biochemistry are transformed into Clinical Laboratory positions, for which applicants from both specialties will compete.

Against the resolution, which does not exhaust the administrative route, an administrative appeal (recurso de alzada) may be filed before the Ministry of Health within one month from the day following its publication. The document was signed in Oviedo on October 1, 2026, by the Managing Director.

Impact for professionals

The new framework affects thousands of Asturian healthcare workers entitled to mobility, who from now on will have a single annual window for participation, although without the obstacle of the mandatory year of permanence. The 2026 extraordinary cycle becomes the immediate route for those with pending requests, with notably shorter deadlines and an offer of destinations reorganized by the new health map.

Source: Official Gazette of the Principality of Asturias, no. 195 of October 8, 2026, section I. Authorities and Personnel, page 1 (official reference: 2026-08153).