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Health Infrastructure

French excellence powering resilient and patient‑centred health systems

As of end‑2024, France’s hospital ecosystem comprises 2,965 health facilities — 1,330 public hospitals, 655 private not‑for‑profit institutions and 980 private clinics — totaling 367,300 acute‑care beds, 91,200 day‑care places and the simultaneous care capacity of 25,400 patients in home‑hospitalization. This steady shift toward ambulatory and home‑based care reflects a system designed to deliver the right care, in the safest conditions, to everyone, nationwide.

A reference model for equitable access

France structures hospital care across graduated levels — local/community care, specialized care, and ultra‑specialized care within 32 university hospitals (CHU/CHRU) — concentrating complex expertise where it matters while safeguarding timely access close to home. This architecture, anchored in successive reforms, underpins quality, safety and efficiency across the country.

Key strengths

  • Integrated continuum from community to highly specialized care
  • Strong role of hospitals in research, training and dissemination of innovation
  • National footprint enabling rapid, equitable access to high‑quality care

Leadership in healthcare research and innovation

France’s university hospitals are entrusted with a threefold mission: care, teaching and research. Bringing forward clinical research, creating knowledge and communicating it are all written in the hospital workers’ DNA.

This French model, the envy of many countries and founded on interaction between doctors and researchers, attracts talent through world-class public research institutions such as the CEA, CNRS, Inserm and the university hospital institutes.

The production of scientific publications is particularly dynamic in oncology (more than 59,000 publications between 2010 and 2019), enabling considerable progress. Over 40 years, the prognosis for childhood acute lymphoblastic leukemia, for example, has changed dramatically, with mortality falling from over 50% to less than 5%. Scientific advances are turned into therapeutic innovation, through a synergy with the nation’s universities, research organizations and pharmaceutical industry. The private hospitals and clinics are also now fully involved in and committed to applied healthcare research and benefit from an ambitious public funding model for research and innovation activities.

The hospital, a key player in optimizing care pathways

For the past fifteen years, there has been an undeniable movement towards opening hospitals up to their environment, whether it is other public establishments integrated into the GHT (regional hospital group), private hospitals, city medicine or the medico-social sector. This coordination facilitates the implementation of new personalized care pathways, with better organization of the upstream and downstream parts of a hospital stay. For instance, in Nouvelle Aquitaine, a health cooperation group (Nova) was established in early 2021, bringing together the region’s three university hospitals to work on healthcare, training, research and innovation. 

The forthcoming roll-out of the access to care service (SAS) is also based on this close cooperation between the city and the hospital. Via a joint telephone number for hospital emergency professionals from the SAMU (emergency medical service) and city doctors, the SAS is dedicated to providing care adapted to the needs of the patient and to relieve congestion in emergency rooms. Initially specific to French-Belgian practice, the SAMU, a call regulation center for medical and health emergencies within a given geographic area enabling medical responses suited to the needs of each patient, is now available in similar forms in many countries. The future access to care service, which is expected to be in widespread use in 2022, is a new organizational model which France can now offer to its foreign partners, and which draws on the use of digital coordination tools.

The exceptional responsiveness of France’s hospital workers to the health crisis

The pandemic revealed the resilience of French hospitals in the face of an unprecedented crisis. The ease with which the hospital workers adapted to the situation, their professionalism, their unfailing commitment and solidarity, the swift redirection of research efforts, and the development of teleconsultation are all illustrations of this.

Within 48 hours, organizations were transformed, making it possible to double the number of intensive care beds, reorganize wards, recruit and train staff, and set up screening and vaccination channels, etc. The university hospital model, which institutes continuing ties between the research community and hospitals, demonstrated all its worth and enabled knowledge sharing on an international level and optimal patient care.

The determination to improve the efficiency of chronic disease management, the capacity to assimilate innovative international practices, the collaboration between public authorities and the private sector to ensure equitable access to healthcare services and products, and the quality of the initial and continuing training for healthcare personnel are just some of the key examples demonstrating the excellence of the French hospital model, which is widely admired and exported abroad.

The hospital sector in figures

  • 3089

    hospitals

  • 408,245

    beds

  • 12,4

    million patients hospitalized once or more per year

  • 645

    emergency structures

  • 104

    SAMUs (emergency medical services)

  • 466

    SMUR (mobile emergency and resuscitation services)

Healthcare institution certification, a guarantee of quality

In place for the past 20 years, the compulsory certification of all public and private healthcare establishments is the exclusive prerogative of the Haute Autorité de Santé (HAS) and takes place every four years. It is based on particularly demanding criteria. These include: the risk of infection, pain management, drug management and the policy for improving the quality and safety of care.

Five French hospitals in the top 100 worldwide

  • The Pitié-Salpêtrière AP-HP University Hospital (Paris): 8th.
  • Georges Pompidou AP-HP Europan Hospital (Paris): 19th.
  • Claude-Huriez CHU Hospital (Lille): 41st.
  • Pellegrin Hospital Group (Bordeaux): 59th.
  • Saint Joseph Hospital (Paris): 86th.

Source: Newsweek’s World’s Best Hospitals 2023: https://www.newsweek.com/best-hospitals-2023

France offers its expertise in hospital construction and management internationally

The “Guide de bonnes pratiques de construction et exploitation hospitalières françaises à l’international” (Guide to Best Practices in French Hospital Construction and Operation Abroad) (AFNOR SPEC S99-120 April 2019) is a compilation of the main guidelines when developing a hospital project, including the design, construction and operation of a healthcare facility, for which French hospital key players offer their expertise. This guide is intended to assist hospital endeavors abroad in a quality-driven approach, paving the way for these establishments to become accredited.

In France, the Haute Autorité de Santé (HAS), an independent public authority, the aim of which is to contribute to the regulation of the healthcare system through quality and efficiency, is the institution responsible for the compulsory certification of healthcare institutions.

Our heartfelt thanks to Lamine Gharbi, president of the French Federation of Private Hospitals and Clinics (FHP); Edouard Couty, national mediator for the staff of public health, social and medico-social establishments; Yann Bubien, director general of Bordeaux University Hospital; and Dr Olivier Claris, neonatologist pediatrician, president of Lyon University Hospital’s Medical Commission, for sharing their experiences. 

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