For those going aboard, it worth check your European Health Insurance Card is still in date, they last for five years but no reminder is sent to you when they expire. It is still wise to take proper insurance ou,t as the card only covers for emergencies in Europe. Long stays in hospitals can involve your spouse wishing to stay with you and that would not be covered on this card.

PS although we got our new cards back within a week, they can take up to six weeks depending on the time of the year

Very good advice mate, lets hope that nobody has to use them.

We renewed ours this year and they came within 10 days which i thought was really good.
I have just ordered one for my stepdaughter and expect that will come within a couple of weeks.

bump, just reminders to everyone

Good point Delboy, god forbid you don't need it, but you never know.

A word of warning on this...

I looked for mine yesterday and couldn't find it anywhere and so decided to order a replacement, just in case I've inadvertently chucked it out. I did a Google search to find the website on which to apply, and the first two I tried (one of which even had the letters NHS in its URL) were charging quite a hefty fee - up to £19.99 if you wanted "express" delivery!

DO NOT USE THESE WEBSITES!!!

If you go to the Direct Gov website, you will find the links from there. This is the official website, and if you order your card from there, you won't be charged. Plus, they're a lot less likely (one would hope) to pass all your details on to a third party!

Have a rep for that currahee

Yep rep from as well and a very good point. I lost mine once and phoned them up, they said they would send them out to us but if they did not arrive on time they also gave me the numbers for each of them in advance that could be used over there, another good tip which is something I havent done but have with passports and money receipts etc is to scan them and email them to yourself just in-case you lose everything ,it will help speed things up if you have access to them via email

Great piece of advice there Currahee, rep from me as well.

On another web site someone asked if they needed other insurance as they had their E111 card!!! soon put right. Another tip. we have scanned our passports in case ours get stolen. At least then, if you have to go to the embassy you have a photocopy of your passport which shows the number and has your photo on it.

The other thing to do MG is to email the scanned passport pic to yourself, then if/when you're away and need it, you can acess your email from somewhere and print it off again if needed

I've also taken a picture of ours and therefore a copy is available on the camera as a back up.

Mark wrote:

The other thing to do MG is to email the scanned passport pic to yourself, then if/when you're away and need it, you can acess your email from somewhere and print it off again if needed

you're just taking credit for Daryn's recommendation a few posts up.................................

Jeez this really is the dejá vú forum tonight

beeech wrote:

Mark wrote:

The other thing to do MG is to email the scanned passport pic to yourself, then if/when you're away and need it, you can acess your email from somewhere and print it off again if needed

you're just taking credit for Daryn's recommendation a few posts up.................................

Typical Mark that is Beeech.

At least I didn't get my 'give me a rep' banner out though

Mark wrote:

At least I didn't get my 'give me a rep' banner out though

I have deleted it by mistake mate.

good thinking mark I shall do that.