[Hospital Federations in Europe]

The Hospital Federations are voluntary associations with non-lucrative ends which join Hospitals together and whose aim is to defend the interests of the Hospitals and their role in society. We study the situation about Hospital Federations in Spain, in the rest of the member States of the European Community and in Switzerland. There are Hospital Federation in West Germany, Luxembourg, The Netherlands, Switzerland, France and Belgium. The Federation has a unitarian character in Germany, Luxembourg, The Netherlands and Switzerland whereas there are several Federations in France and Belgium. There are not Hospital Federations, or they have a very minimum role, in the U.K., Denmark, Portugal, Italy, Ireland and Greece. In this article we analyse the conditions under which a Hospital Federation could be formed in our country which would join a large percentage of hospital beds together in Spain.