*****E111 form replaced by EHIC****

[Skribble]

Did you know that you don't fill out a E111 form when going to europe you have to send away for a European Health Insurance Card?

You can pick up the form at the Post Office but you have to send away for the card, you get one for the whole family.

I didn't know, MIL got me one and it is still sitting in front of me .

Anybody who applied for an E111 (or whatever) last year (or even earlier, our last trip abroad was in Oct 04) could tick a box on the form asking to be sent the plastic cards when they finally came out - ours arrived late last year some time.

There is one card per person. You can apply online here - you will need a Nat Ins for everybody over 16 and a Nat Health number for everybody else.

We got ours last year [smug emoticon]

Oh thanks I never thought of doing it online .

Be warned the applications online can disappear down a deep dark hole. We had to ring up twice in October to chase ours up after waiting about 6 weeks and having already been on holiday (as long as they have logged your application you are covered without the actual card). It should only take about 10 days or so. Each person gets a separate card but you can apply for all family members on the same form.

Being a muppet, I failed to realise that you couldn't do it over the counter at the Post Office, and phoned them up in a complete panic, as dd1 and I are meant to be going away on Sunday.

The operator took all the details over the phone, NI numbers for me and dh, used my NI number for the children, so mercifully didn't have to dig out children's NHS nos.

He then told me the actual cards might take longer to arrive, and gave me a no. to phone in case we needed medical treatment, saying they would fax over authorisation in case of emergency.

This was all on Wednesday, and guess what? The cards all arrived in the post today! I can't think when I was last so impressed by quality of service, and this is the public sector. Maybe we just got lucky, but clearly it can happen.

Frogs the exact same thing happened to us at the end of the summer & we got ours the day before we left. I work for HMRC & was quite impressed 'cos I know first hand how crap the Civil Service is. (Except me cos I do a terrific job)