Emergency Numbers & Medical Care in Spain for Tourists

112 is the only number you need to remember

In Spain, and everywhere else in the European Union, 112 is the single emergency number. It connects you to one control room that dispatches ambulances, police and fire crews, so you do not have to work out which service you need before you dial. That is the whole point of the number: you are not expected to diagnose the situation, only to describe it. If you learn nothing else before your trip, learn 112. Do not spend time searching for a separate ambulance or police line while something is happening in front of you, because the operator on 112 can send any of them.

Why 112 works even when your phone barely does

Calls to 112 are free from any phone, landline or mobile, and no credit or data plan is required. A mobile will normally place the call even when it is locked, when it has no SIM inserted, or when it is roaming on a foreign network, because emergency calls are routed through whichever network is reachable rather than only your own operator. That matters in Spain more than people expect: mountain roads, rural inland areas and stretches of coast have patchy coverage, and a handset showing no bars for your own carrier may still reach 112 through another. Spanish emergency call centres handle calls in languages other than Spanish, English among them, though the range of languages available varies by region and by the moment you call.

Say where you are before you say what happened

The most common problem on emergency calls abroad is that the caller describes the injury in detail and cannot say where they are. Location comes first. Give the town, then the street or the road number and the direction you were travelling, then a landmark a crew can see from a vehicle: a hotel name, a beach access point, a kilometre marker, a petrol station, a roundabout. If you are on a hiking trail or a beach, say so explicitly, because that changes which unit is sent. Only then describe what has happened. Stay on the line until the operator tells you the call is finished, and keep the phone free afterwards so the crew can call you back.

What to have ready when you call 112

• Where you are: town, street or road, and a visible landmark or kilometre marker
• What happened, in one plain sentence, and how long ago
• How many people are affected, and whether anyone is unconscious or not breathing
• Whether the person is a child, elderly, pregnant, or visibly seriously injured
• The phone number you are calling from, in case the line drops
• Whether access is difficult: a beach, a trail, an upper floor with no lift, a locked gate

112, urgencias, or a centro de salud

Call 112 when someone may be in danger: chest pain, difficulty breathing, loss of consciousness, a serious fall, heavy bleeding, a drowning, a road accident, or anything that would make you reluctant to move the person. In those cases do not drive to hospital yourself. For an urgent but stable problem, going directly to urgencias, the emergency department of a hospital, is normal in Spain and needs no referral. For smaller things that still need seeing the same day, a centro de salud, the local public health centre, is usually faster and less crowded than a hospital. Public hospitals are signposted as hospital público. Resort areas also have private clinics, which are quick but bill visitors directly, so check what your policy says about private treatment before you choose one.

The first hour of a medical emergency abroad

Deal with the emergency first. Call 112, get the person to care, and do not delay treatment to make phone calls or hunt for paperwork. Once the immediate situation is under control, contact your insurer's assistance line. That number is printed on your own policy documents, and it is usually not the same as the ordinary customer service line. Assistance teams do the things you cannot do from a waiting room: confirm cover, arrange direct billing with the hospital where that is possible, speak to the medical staff, and organise repatriation if it becomes necessary. Many policies require you to notify them within a set period, and some will not pay for treatment they were never told about, so make that call the same day rather than at the end of the trip.

Carry your policy number somewhere other than your phone

An assistance number is useless if it only exists in an email on a handset that is lost, stolen, broken or flat, and phones do not always survive the kinds of events that cause emergencies. Write your policy number and the insurer's assistance number on a card and keep it in your wallet, then leave a second copy with someone at home who can be reached. Add a note of any regular medication and known allergies while you are at it. Tell whoever you are travelling with where that card is, because in the situations that matter most you may not be the one making the call.

What the EHIC and GHIC do and do not do

EU, EEA and Swiss nationals holding a European Health Insurance Card, called the Tarjeta Sanitaria Europea in Spain, are treated in the state system on the same terms as a Spanish resident. UK nationals have the GHIC, which works similarly for state healthcare. Neither card is insurance. They do not cover treatment in a private clinic, they do not pay for repatriation home, and they have nothing to do with cancelled trips or lost baggage. Visitors without either card are billed for treatment, including in public hospitals. This is why the card and a policy are usually held together rather than treated as alternatives: the card handles state treatment, the policy handles everything around it.

Documents to collect before you leave Spain

• The medical report or discharge summary; in Spanish is fine, and asking for a copy at the time is far easier than requesting one later
• Every invoice and receipt, including any deposit or advance payment
• Proof of payment: card slips or bank statements showing what you actually paid
• Prescriptions and pharmacy receipts, which are frequently forgotten and frequently claimable
• Receipts for extra costs caused by the incident, such as changed flights or additional nights of accommodation
• A police report if there was an accident, a theft or an assault
• The reference number the assistance team gives you when you first call

A few habits worth building before you travel

Read the emergency section of your policy once before you go, so you know what it asks of you rather than reading it for the first time in a hospital corridor. Check whether it expects prior authorisation for anything beyond immediate treatment. Learn the word farmacia, the pharmacy, marked with a green cross, where staff can advise on minor problems and point you to the nearest health centre. Photograph your passport, your health card and your policy, and store the images somewhere you can reach without your own phone. None of this takes long, and it turns an emergency abroad into a medical problem rather than an administrative one, which is the only part you should have to think about at the time.