Danish Health System Overview
Health System Rankings
Health System Outcomes
Health System Coverage
Costs for Consumers
Health System Expenditures
Danish COVID-19 Policy
Health System Financing
Health System Personnel
Health System Physical Resources and Utilization
Long-Term Care
Health Information and Communications Technologies
Medical Training
Pharmaceuticals
Danish Political System
Economic System
Population Demographics
People With Disabilities
Aging
Social Determinants & Health Equity
Health System History
Health System Challenges
Density of medical doctors per 10,000 population, 2012-2020: 42.2
Density of nursing and midwifery personnel per 10,000 population, 2012-2020): 105.4
Density of dentists per 10,000 population, 2012-2020: 7.2
Density of pharmacists per 10,000 population, 2012-2020: 5.4
Source: World health statistics 2022: monitoring health for the SDGs, sustainable development
goals. Geneva: World Health Organization; 2022. Licence: CC BY-NC-SA 3.0 IGO.
Practicing Doctors per 1,000 Population, 2019: 4.2
Source: OECD (2021), Health at a Glance 2021: OECD Indicators, OECD Publishing, Paris, https://doi.org/10.1787/ae3016b9-en.
Practicing Nurses per 1,000 Population, 2019: 10.1
Source: OECD (2021), Health at a Glance 2021: OECD Indicators, OECD Publishing, Paris, https://doi.org/10.1787/ae3016b9-en.
Ratio of Nurses to Doctors, 2019: 2.4
Source: OECD (2021), Health at a Glance 2021: OECD Indicators, OECD Publishing, Paris, https://doi.org/10.1787/ae3016b9-en.
“The number of doctors and nurses per population in Denmark is slightly higher than the EU average (see Section 4). However, Denmark faces GP shortages – particularly in rural and remote areas. In 2019, only 37% of GPs were accepting new patients, down from 51% in 2015. There was, however, wide geographical variation between regions (Figure 16). This means that, in practice, many Danes have difficulty finding a GP if they move or want to change their regular doctor. A number of initiatives have been introduced to increase the supply of GPs and improve their geographical distribution (Ministry of Health, 2020).
“The government announced plans in 2019 to employ 1,000 new nurses in the hospital sector – half by December 2020 and with the remainder during 2021. In June 2020, a government-appointed task force presented 23 recommendations to strengthen the health and care sector workforce (Ministry of Finance, 2020). In 2021, it was announced that the number of training slots for specialist physicians was to be increased by 8% by 2023.”
Source: OECD/European Observatory on Health Systems and Policies (2021), Denmark: Country Health Profile 2021, State of Health in the EU, OECD Publishing, Paris/European Observatory on Health Systems and Policies, Brussels.
Health Systems Facts is a project of the Real Reporting Foundation. We provide reliable statistics and other data from authoritative sources regarding health systems in the US and sixteen other nations.
Page last updated Nov. 21, 2022 by Doug McVay, Editor.
