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Healthcare at home and abroad
Former Member
Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
Does anyone know if it's possible to stay registered at a current (i.e home) g.p's if you're away for a year abroad? I'm going to be going to France for about 7 months in september, and was just wondering.....the ideal would be that I stay registered at my uni g.p, and get repeat prescriptions from them, and go and see them during the holidays if necessary. I'm definitely staying with the hospital consultant I currently see, and I'd just like to keep things stable if at all possible, but don't know if that's possible?
I know I need to go and see my g.p before I go to properly sort things out, but I've got essays and exams everywhere at the moment, and can't really spare the time to sort it out for a few weeks, and it's been puzzling me.....
I know it wouldn't be the end of the world to have to have a french doctor or anything, but I'm just a bit worried that they might not routinely use the same meds etc as over here, and since I'm at a pretty stable place with my meds, I don't want that getting messed about with.......But also, I know it would be a bit risky not to have a g.p over there, cos I won't exactly be wanting to fly back to england if I get ill.....
Any ideas?
I know I need to go and see my g.p before I go to properly sort things out, but I've got essays and exams everywhere at the moment, and can't really spare the time to sort it out for a few weeks, and it's been puzzling me.....
I know it wouldn't be the end of the world to have to have a french doctor or anything, but I'm just a bit worried that they might not routinely use the same meds etc as over here, and since I'm at a pretty stable place with my meds, I don't want that getting messed about with.......But also, I know it would be a bit risky not to have a g.p over there, cos I won't exactly be wanting to fly back to england if I get ill.....
Any ideas?
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Yep, that's what I was hoping to do - I'm going to be an assistant at a school over there, so I should be coming home for school holidays.
She is coming home during the holidays, she says so.
Surely in France they dont have a school holiday every four weeks?
This will not be a problem. Many people don't visit the doctor at all for several years and yet remain registered.
This might be a problem though, it really depends on the medication. You may find that you need to be reviewed to ensure that there are no side effects, or to change the doasges.
You may also find that the NHS will not allow you to be given your drugs fo anything more than a few weeks. This is because the cost of your prescription is huge - whilst you only pay £7. So the more drugs prescribed, the greater the difference between what you pay and what the NHS pays.
You certainly do. You also need to find out whether your travel insurance would cover you if you feel ill abroad for example.
Sure that's a worry, so you might want to consider whether you should be going at all. You really need to discuss this with your GP asap because it may inform your decisions.
Do they even have GPs in France?
Not everywhere does you know, so you'd better check how you access healthcare when you get there, just in case you do need it.
I'll fail my course if I don't go, and I really want to go. If it was just a temporary health problem I'd definitely postpone the year abroad, but it's not, so if this is what I want, which it is, then I just need to work around the problems. Yep, I'll face more obstacles going there than a lot of my friends will, but I don't think that means I shouldn't go, I just probably need to try harder to make it work than they will. I've done everything I can to make it as easy as possible, I'm in the North of France, so I can get home relatively easily. I know that I can't control the course of my disease, but there's a good chance that I'll be pretty healthy over there as long as I take my medication properly and stuff.
I'm pretty sure that they have the equivalent of g.p's (called 'generalistes'), but you can also consult specialists directly. We've done quite a lot of work on the french healthcare system, so that's not really a worry, I know that it's a good system, it's just that if I can avoid the hassle of changing doctors etc I will.
If there's a problem with getting back, my parents will be able to help me out, post prescriptions for me to sign, and post the medications to me etc. They're planning on visiting quite a lot as well, so there's lots of ways around getting the actual medication. I'm well settled on my meds, so reviews etc should be able to be arranged for whenever I'm back in England.
If you don't you could be charged.
Guess it'll just have to be arranged to coincide with school holidays/my parents coming over then.
Yes, you could be. Sending drugs abroad is risky BUT a colleague sends her parents medications to their home in Spain every month and has been doing so for four years now without anything happening.
But you never know..