The Espriu Foundation
“Working to provide accessible, high-quality, healthcare.”
The Espriu Foundation is a non-profit organisation dedicated to promoting healthcare cooperativism, a model which brings together the two main players in medicine: healthcare professionals and patients.
Founded in 1989, it was created by Spanish organisations which were guided by the vision of Dr Josep Espriu, who believed in a social medicine based on the cooperative business formula.
The Espriu Foundation is the strategic centre of the Asisa and Assistència Sanitària cooperative groups, a business network made up of hospitals, medical centres, insurance companies, diagnostic centres, technology companies and mutuals.
Assistència Sanitària and Asisa's commitment to society is embodied in the Espriu Foundation's international work to promote cooperativism as an innovative solution for improving health systems, always keeping patients and medical professionals at the centre.
Furthermore, the Espriu Foundation encourages cooperatives to collaborate with governments, helping to alleviate the burden on public health systems and proving that cooperative healthcare is a key tool for guaranteeing the sustainability of national health systems.
Dr. Josep Espriu
The origins of the Foundation date back to the 1950s, when a cooperative business model began to develop which sought to provide high-quality healthcare while improving the working conditions of doctors. Over the decades, this model has evolved and adapted to the changing needs of the healthcare sector, always with a commitment to ensuring fair and efficient access to medical care.
The Espriu Foundation's organisations currently form the third largest cooperative healthcare group in the world in terms of turnover.
Source: ‘Global Cooperative Monitor 2023’ report by the European Institute for Cooperative and Social Enterprise Research (Euricse) and the International Cooperative Alliance (ICA).
The values that guide the actions of the Espriu Foundation are the equality and freedom of individuals, non-discrimination and the pursuit of social benefit and the general interest.