How to see a doctor online while you are abroad

What are your options if you get sick abroad?

Every route below is real and every one is the right answer sometimes. The differences that actually matter to a traveller are how long it takes, whether you have to leave where you are, and whether the person you speak to can do anything about your problem.

Pharmacy rules really do differ. In France, for example, a trained pharmacist can now run a rapid test at the counter and supply antibiotics if it is positive, but only for a sore throat in people aged 10 and over and for simple cystitis in women aged 16 to 65, and the pharmacist can decline if, for example, you do not speak enough French to give your medical details. A duty pharmacy, the pharmacie de garde, covers nights, Sundays and public holidays. Our guide to seeing a doctor in France sets out which route fits which situation there.

How do you decide which one to use?

Two questions get you to an answer quickly.

1. Is this sudden and severe? Chest pain, difficulty breathing, a severe head injury, heavy bleeding, a stiff neck with sensitivity to light, confusion, or symptoms that are getting worse fast. If yes, stop reading and get emergency help.
2. Does someone need to physically examine me? A suspected fracture, a wound that may need closing, severe or localised abdominal pain, anything that needs a scan or a blood test. If yes, you need to be seen in person, and a video call is still useful for working out where to go.

If both answers are no, you are in the territory where a video consultation is usually the shortest path between feeling unwell and knowing what to do about it.

What can a doctor actually do over video?

More than most people expect, and less than a clinic. A video consultation is a real consultation: history, symptoms, what you have already tried, what you are taking, and a look at anything visible.

A doctor on a video call can usually:

• Work out how likely it is that your symptoms are something serious.
• Tell you what to do next, and how long to expect it to take.
• Explain which over-the-counter options are appropriate for your situation.
• Tell you clearly when to stop self-treating and get seen in person, and what to look out for in the meantime.
• Consider a prescription where that is clinically appropriate and local rules allow. Whether one can be issued and then dispensed depends on the medicine and the country you are in.

What it cannot do is put hands on you. No examination of your abdomen, no chest listened to, no swabs, no imaging, no bloods. That is a real limit, not a technicality, and it is exactly why a good video consultation sometimes ends with the doctor sending you somewhere else.

What if it is an emergency?

Anywhere in the EU, 112 reaches an ambulance, the fire brigade or the police, free of charge, from a fixed line or a mobile. It works alongside national emergency numbers rather than replacing them, and some countries outside the EU use it too. If you are travelling further afield, look up the local number on arrival and put it in your phone. It takes ten seconds and it is the one piece of travel admin you will be glad you did.

Will insurance or a health card pay for it?

Assume you are paying something, and check the detail before you need it rather than after.

For UK travellers, a Global Health Insurance Card gives access to necessary state healthcare in the EEA and some other countries on the same basis as a resident of that country. The NHS is explicit that this is not the same as free care: it may be free, or it may require a payment equivalent to what a local resident would pay, and you may be charged for treatment you would get free on the NHS. It does not cover treatment in a private facility, medical repatriation, or mountain rescue, and the NHS states plainly that it is not a replacement for travel insurance.

UK government guidance on foreign travel insurance makes the same point from the other side. It gives the example of a broken leg in Spain needing hospital treatment and possible repatriation, and a stomach bug in the USA needing hospital admission, and states that the government does not pay these bills. If you are uninsured, they are yours.

What should you have ready before you speak to a doctor?

A consultation goes faster and gets further when you can answer these without hunting. None of it is complicated, but it is much harder to assemble while you feel terrible. The longer version, including what to say about your medical history and how to describe a symptom usefully, is in a traveller's checklist for seeing a doctor abroad.

• Where you are, specifically. The country and the city or region.
• When the symptoms started, and whether they are getting better, worse or staying put.
• Your temperature, if you can take it, and anything else you can measure rather than estimate.
• Any medicines you take regularly, using the generic name on the packet rather than the brand, plus anything you have taken in the last day or two.
• Allergies, and any condition a doctor would want to know about.
• What you have eaten or drunk that is out of the ordinary, and where.

What if the problem is a prescription rather than a symptom?

Running out of your own medication, or losing it, is a different problem from getting ill, and it has different answers. The rules for carrying medicines across borders, replacing them abroad, and why the brand name you know may not exist where you are, are covered separately in our guide to prescriptions abroad.

If the problem is a stomach upset specifically, which is a common way for a trip to get interrupted, what to do in the first day of food poisoning covers the practical version, including the symptoms that mean you should stop managing it yourself.

And if you are not sure whether your particular complaint is one a video call can do anything useful with, five common travel illnesses a video doctor can help with works through the usual suspects and where each one runs out of road.