The School of Health, as an organic subunit of the Faculty of Health Sciences at Fernando Pessoa University, dates back to 2002.

After 18 years of integration as a polytechnic teaching unit, benefiting from the sharing of material and human resources with the university – an integration ratified and enshrined in the UFP Statutes of 2009, duly adapted to the RJIES – Legal Regime of Higher Education Institutions (Law No. 62/2007, of September 10) – and, as such, registered by the supervising ministry – the institutional evaluation of the university by the Agency for Assessment and Accreditation of Higher Education, in 2017-18, required the autonomy of that organic subunit as its own polytechnic higher education establishment, albeit with the same founding entity, the Fernando Pessoa Foundation. This autonomy occurred in 2020, with the recognition of public interest of the Higher School of Health of the Fernando Pessoa Foundation (ESS-FP) by Decree-Law No. 45/2020, of July 23.