Foreign Perspectives

We figured that getting back into the UK health system would be a doddle and so it seemed to be initially. However, several days after handing in the simple “signing up to a doctor” form to our former doctor, we were told that in fact we need to fill in the slightly more complicated one for people coming from overseas and to provide birth certificates for everybody too.

In our case, the form isn’t quite so simple to complete as it might be in that when it asks if I’m making National Insurance contributions I’m not sure what the correct answer should be. OK, right now I’m not contributing in that we’ve just arrived here a few weeks ago but on the other hand chances are that I will be contributing by the time they get around to processing the form.

That “non-contribution” aspect prompted us to think about signing on for unemployment benefit (Jobseekers Allowance as it’s now called). So, starting out from the premise that all we really needed was access to the health system we now find ourselves making a claim for unemployment benefits that we’d not otherwise have bothered with. Silly, or what?

Still, at least it’ll give us some kind of proof to the French authorities that we’re not in their system anymore.