Stay Healthy Abroad, Tips & Advice for a Healthier Expatriate Lifestyle

Many expats fail to realise that they can lose the right to state healthcare under the NHS system when they move abroad.  In fact, it’s commonplace amongst expats to think that if they become poorly abroad they can simply hop on a plane, pop home and have treatment.  Whilst hospitals and doctors in the UK are more likely to treat you than not and not charge you, you may get away with it, but you are not necessarily within your rights to do so.

However, a consultation has been launched by the Department of Health to examine whether actually the NHS should be more lenient with those Brits who spend some of their time overseas, and instead of penalising them financially if they return for treatment, costs should be applied to foreign visitors instead to prevent so-called health tourists from visiting Britain for treatment and draining the NHS further.

The consultation is welcome as far as expats are concerned – and perhaps timely as we’re aware how badly performing many NHS trusts are as they are so underfunded.  If the UK can find a way to treat its citizens fairly but charge foreign visitors for care instead, surely that makes sense?

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A recent report in the Telegraph has highlighted the view of some of the British expatriates who are now living in Spain and paying the so-called ‘care tax’ each month; this is the tax payment that enables them to have access to the local healthcare system if they are ineligible for free care on a reciprocal agreement basis with the UK.

We ran an article that looked at whether expats in Spain are better off paying this tax or buying an international insurance policy purely on a cost basis, but the Telegraph feature looked specifically at whether those paying the local tax actually felt they were getting good service and treatment levels for their monthly contribution.

As the article finds, not only is the Spanish bureaucracy associated with taxation and accessing the healthcare system in general not as onerous and inaccessible as first thought, but the actual medical care available in Spain is of a high standard, with any tax payment towards accessing care also deemed affordable.

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Spanish politicians and doctors have launched an attack against British expatriates who seek treatment for medical conditions when in Spain, and they have accused such Brits of being a drain on limited resources. 

One needs to scrape below the surface quite a way to discover why this attack has been levelled at Britons’ doors in particular, and what the expats are actually allegedly guilty of: but one thing the attack certainly does is ‘focus the mind!’  I.e., the Spanish attack on British expatriate patients brings the message home loud and clear – ‘Get Health Insurance!’ – or risk being left high and dry.

In a bid to clarify the position for British expats who’re thinking of moving to live, work or retire to Spain, this report will outline who is eligible for free health care in Spain, what your EHIC (European Health Insurance Card) will cover you for and when and why you really do need to get private medical insurance in place depending on your status.

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