Cholesterol Management in Seville

Healthcare in Seville: what visitors and residents should know

How local care works in Seville and across Andalusia, Spain — and where an online doctor fits alongside it.

Seville's public healthcare is provided by the Servicio Andaluz de Salud (SAS), the Andalusian regional health service, with Spanish the only official language and limited English provision outside the main teaching hospitals. State healthcare is run at regional level, so the rules you meet depend on where you are rather than on Spain as a whole. EU, EEA and Swiss visitors holding an EHIC (or a UK GHIC) can use public primary care and emergency departments on the same terms as residents, though you will normally be asked for the card plus photo ID at reception. Outside surgery hours, pharmacies operate a rota — the farmacia de guardia — and the duty pharmacy is posted in the window of every closed chemist. Seville is inland on the Guadalquivir plain and is one of the hottest cities in Europe: summer temperatures regularly exceed 40°C and the city has its own named-heatwave scheme. Heat exhaustion and heatstroke are not marginal risks here but the defining seasonal health issue, and they catch out visitors who have planned a walking itinerary through the old city in July or August. The other distinctive pressure is Semana Santa and the Feria de Abril, when the resident population is joined by very large crowds for a concentrated period and both pharmacies and urgencias departments run at capacity. Outside those weeks, demand is steadier than in the coastal resorts.

• Rich cultural heritage
• Popular tourist destination
• Growing international community

Areas we cover around Seville and Andalusia

An online consultation is not a substitute for emergency care. If you are in Seville and your symptoms are severe or life-threatening, call 112 or go to the nearest emergency department.