- Patient information
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- Health care for overseas visitors
- About the factsheets
- Health care for people coming to Scotland to work
- Health care for people coming to Scotland to study
- Health care for asylum seekers and refugees
- Health care for former UK residents now working abroad
- Health care for UK passport holders living abroad
- Health care for UK pensioners visiting Scotland
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Health care for former UK residents now working abroad
What happens if I need health care when I visit Scotland?
- Everyone can get some health care from the NHS. Services that are free for everyone include:
- emergency care in a hospital (in the accident and emergency department or in the casualty department)
- emergency care at a GP surgery
- emergency transport in an ambulance
- sexual health services
- treatment for some infectious diseases and sexually transmitted infections.
- If you need any other health care, NHS staff at the GP surgery, clinic or hospital will ask to see some documents. This is to help them decide if you are allowed to get health care as an NHS patient.
- They may ask you to show:
- your passport
- your EHIC card
- documents showing that you lived in the UK for 10 years (for example, evidence of employment in the UK, schools attended in the UK, previous UK addresses), or
- your employment contract.
- If you don’t have the documents they ask for, NHS staff may not be able to treat you as an NHS patient, and you may need to pay for any care you receive.
Page last edited: 02 August 2010