The Wellness30 September 2026Last reviewed 30 September 2026
Abroad, your first call should be to a doctor who already knows you. Our members reach their doctor by phone or video from any country, usually within the hour. If you need to be seen in person, we find a trusted local doctor, book you in and send your record ahead.
UK residents made 94.6 million visits abroad in 2024, according to the Office for National Statistics. Most trips pass without a doctor. When one is needed, the hardest part is often the first hour, working out whether this can wait, who to call and what to tell them.
Our members call their own doctor. Signature, at £6,950 a year, includes a doctor by phone or video from any country, usually within the hour. Overnight in London, wai answers straight away and a doctor calls you back when it cannot wait.
Your doctor has your record, knows your medicines and can tell you in a few minutes whether you need to be seen, where, and how soon.
If you need to be seen, we find a trusted local doctor or clinic, book you in and send your record ahead, so the doctor in front of you knows your history before you sit down. The visit itself is paid at our partner rates.
On Platinum, your physician also speaks to any hospital that admits you, so decisions abroad are made with the history in front of them, and the letter comes back into your record at home.
A UK Global Health Insurance Card gives you state healthcare in the European Union and some other countries, on the same terms as a resident. It does not cover private treatment, and it does not bring you home.
Travel insurance covers emergency treatment and getting you home, within the terms of the policy. Call the insurer’s assistance line before you are admitted where you can, because most policies ask to be told first.
Membership sits beside both. It gives you your own doctor on the phone, a local doctor booked with your record sent ahead, and somebody at home who reads what happened when you return.
Platinum includes two video consultations before you travel, for the vaccines a destination calls for, the medicines to take and how much of them, and a plan for any condition you are managing.
On Signature, a video consultation before a trip counts toward your fair use, which is up to 36 by phone or video a year. Take your prescriptions in their original packaging, carry a copy of your record on your phone, and know the local emergency number.
When you are home, your doctor sees you the same day at our London clinics, including Marylebone and Belgravia, open from 7am to 9pm every day, reads the local doctor’s notes with you, and follows up anything that needs it.
Without a membership, a video consultation with one of our doctors is £150 from any country, and a same day appointment in London after you land is £220.
If you take regular medicines, take enough for the trip and a few days more, in their original packaging, in your hand luggage. Some medicines need a letter from your doctor to cross a border, and a few need a licence. Your doctor can write the letter and tell you which apply to where you are going.
If you manage a condition such as diabetes, asthma or high blood pressure, agree a plan before you go for what to do if things change, and who to call. Your doctor can go through it with you by video before you leave.
Most problems abroad are ordinary ones. A stomach upset, a chest or ear infection, a skin reaction, a minor injury, a lost prescription. Your doctor can settle many of them by video, tell you what to buy locally, and book you in with a local doctor when an examination is needed.
Some need to be seen quickly. A high fever after time in a malaria area, chest pain, breathlessness, a head injury or a wound that looks infected should be seen the same day, and your doctor will say so on the call.
Keep the number for your doctor in your phone under a name you will find at three in the morning, and keep a photograph of your passport, your insurance policy and your list of medicines in the same place. When you call, say where you are, what has happened and what you have taken. Your doctor does the rest, from the record they already hold.
94.6 million
visits abroad were made by UK residents in 2024, who spent £78.7 billion on them.
Office for National Statistics, Travel trends, 2024 Open the paper
100 million
consultations in English general practice were analysed, and the rate rose from 4.67 to 5.16 consultations per person per year between 2007 and 2014.
Hobbs FDR and colleagues, Clinical workload in UK primary care, The Lancet, 2016. University of Oxford
Your doctor can advise you and arrange a prescription through the local doctor we book, because a UK prescription is not always dispensed abroad.
You do, at our partner rates, or your travel insurer where the policy covers it. We give you the price before you are booked in.
Your doctor answers by phone or video from any country. Where we book a local doctor depends on the city, and we tell you who and where before you go.
Call the local emergency number first. Then call us, and we speak to the hospital.