Registering with Health Authority - Form E106

We have moved permanently to Orihuela Costa and I need help with the Form E106.  We have to register with our local sickness insurance office - where do I find out where this is?

Also we need to register with a doctor - do we do this after we have completed Form E106?

Would be very grateful for help on this one

First, if you have not already done so, you will have to register on your local council padron and get a padron certificate for a SIP card. You also now have to get your residence certificates as well.

Once you have the above, go to the social security office in Orihuela town with a interpreter if your spanish is not good enough.

Take with you, originals and copies of your passports, padron, residence cert. wedding license (if married) and possibly. because I am not sure and don't have any here, kids birth certs, e106 form.

If you have not been there, they have numbering system like the deli. counter at Sainsbury's, get a number, if the queue is long, a coffee. When your turn comes, give the person dealing with you the e106 forms, the padron and the residence certs. and whatever else they ask for. If they are in a good mood and your paperwork is in order they will stamp your e106 forms and that is it for now.

Now you have stamped e106 forms, go to your local Central de Salud (Health centre) at the times they deal with SIP cards, take with you, just in case, all what you took to Orihuela and also your E111 health cards you got from the uk. Hopefully you will walk away with temporary SIP cards dated until the end date of the e106 for the first year. They may only give you one for 6 months, if so, go back after the expiry date and they will give you another one for 6 months. A doctor will be alocated to you.

If you have 2 sets of e106 forms, keep the last set safe, as you will have to go through the whole procedure again the year after.

For the future, as long as Valencia do not carry out the threat to pull free health care, you may be able to continue to get temporary SIP cards once your e106 forms have run out. But don't rely on this fact. 

Good luck

Many thanks for the info - not as easy as what we first thought!

We have our residence paperwork, but will now need to go for the padron.

Our E106 forms are due to expire 31 December 2011, so hopefully we will be okay till then. 

It is the registering with a doctor I hoped to get done quickly, but it doesn't seem so.

thank you for replying.

Hi - Mr Kevin's reply is true for most of Spain but Orihuela Costa does everything differently!  For once though, this is good news.

When you have your Residencia and Padron, you simply go to the Health Centre at Cabo Roig and give them these with your E106 form and you will get your temporary SIP card there and then.  You can see a doctor before that and have medication prescribed, but they won't actually register you with a doctor until you have the Residencia and Padron.

It is always a good idea to have a few copies of everything and take every piece of legal documentation you possess - especially your passports.  When I did it a year ago, the Padron took about 3 weeks to get but I don't know if it has got better or worse in that time.

I always took a book with me when I went to the town hall as the queues were awful!

All the best!

hi Claire - we went to the town hall (Playa Flamenca) at 1pm and went to the Padron desk - in less than 10 minutes, we were given our copies of our Padron!!

On the left as you enter the town hall, there is a guy on a desk where you can register for SIP (health care).  He said we could either go to Orihuela at 8am and queue up with our forms E106 and get them stamped that day.  If we leave the E106's with him, they will be stamped at the local hospital and returned within 7 to 10 days. He also requires an original of the Padron.   In the meantime if we give him our EHIC cards (E111) he can give us temporary SIP cards for 6 months, and can register us with a doctor at the same time.   We have decided to take up his offer, as we dont want to be trying to find the appropriate office in Orihuela at 8 am!!  Going back tomorrow to sort it out (forgot to take our E111 cards with us today).

Thanks to you and Mr Kevin for your help and advice.

 Hi Could you tell me where do you get an E106 form from 

patandlinda

Look at http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/cnr/osc.htm

There's a pdf of the E106 under where it says 'The paperwork: what forms do I need?'

Application for certificate E106, E109 or other portable health form.

http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/forms/ca8454.pdf

Is this what you want?

 Thank you for your quick reply yes this is what I am looking for.

However after reading other posts I think that I may have a problem registering with a doctor, as the wife has not worked for the last four years so has no N.I. payments and I am under 65.

I have read that you can see a doctor on a "pay as you go" in Spain so I may look into that as the wife needs tablets on a monthly basis

If anyone has any advice on a pay as you go  it would be most helpful

Pat and Linda

quote...as the wife needs tablets on a monthly basis...unquote

Depending on what the tablets are you may be able to get them over the counter from a farmacia without a prescription.

For instance in the UK a pescription is required for HRT medication; not so over here; our local farmacia are happy to supply them (or the Spanish equivalent); some antibiotics do however require a prescription, but SEPTRIN a broad spectrum antibiotic normally used for the treatment of UTI's and cystitis is available without a prescription.

If you take a copy of your last UK prescription or the packaging from the tablets the farmacia may be able to supply them without all the red tape.

Of course there may be regional variations; the things stated above certainly apply here in Granada province, but Valencia seem to have different rules for just about everything!

Best bet would be to try it and see.

Insofar as the lack of NI stamps is concerned, I'm fairly sure that bit only applies to UK State Pension rules; obviously many UK wives don't work for whatever reason and hence dont pay a NI stamp and yet have full entitlement and access to the NHS Health Services. I would have thought this entitlement should also apply out here on the strength of hubbies stamps...

In this instance I think your best bet would be to talk to the DWP International Pension Centre (Tel: +44 191 218 1999)

Of all the UKGovernment Agencies I have found these folk to be very helpful; a smashing group of people who know what they are talking about. I know there title is Pension Centre but they also deal with questions of Health Service entitlements overseas. You will need to have your NI number to hand and also that of your husband.

As a general by the way, the Form E 106 has been replaced by Form S1.

For all matters concerning UK residents in Spain, i would urge all expats to bookmark this link to the UK Embassy Services in Madrid

Hope this helps a little....

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