Sunburn Treatment in Lanzarote

Healthcare in Lanzarote: what visitors and residents should know

How local care works in Lanzarote and across Canary Islands, Spain — and where an online doctor fits alongside it.

Lanzarote's public healthcare comes under the Servicio Canario de la Salud (SCS), the Canary Islands' regional health service; Spanish is the only official language. 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. Lanzarote is a smaller island than Tenerife or Gran Canaria and its provision is correspondingly island-scale, with more complex cases transferred to the larger islands or the mainland — journeys that mean flights and real delay. Visitors are concentrated in Puerto del Carmen, Costa Teguise and Playa Blanca, and the island's year-round warm, dry, notably windy climate sustains a twelve-month tourist season rather than a summer peak, including a substantial Northern European winter contingent. The landscape is volcanic and largely shadeless, which combined with the constant trade winds masks how much sun visitors are actually getting — sunburn and dehydration are common precisely because the wind makes the heat feel milder than it is.

• UNESCO Biosphere Reserve
• Popular with UK tourists
• Unique volcanic landscapes

Areas we cover around Lanzarote and Canary Islands

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