That all depends on where you live in the UK we have had no problems since we have been back in the UK

Glad to hear that you haven't had any problems but that is not representative!

For that all you have to do is check the data for the NHS!

https://www.bma.org.uk/advice-and-su...-data-analysis

You have underfunding, staff shortages with the overall impact of Covid all coming together to cause huge problems for patients needing treatment from the NHS!

Not that I know of but your best bet is to phone/visit a local pharmacy and ask if you can buy your medication over the counter and without a prescription.

There is a whole host of medication you can buy without a prescription in Spain - same goes for Portugal.

Also not all pharmacies react in the same way. Some are more than happy to sell you things whilst another will do nothing without a prescription. Very much depends on the area. For example, if in a place that serves tourists they have a tendency to be more accommodating whereas one that serves locals, small towns, off the beaten track etc are more likely to say no.

Rosemary

Whenever I want to check the price of a particular medication I just type "precio de xxxx" into google and plenty of results come up.

But you could try this one for the Castilla La Mancha region (prices will be standard across Spain), if you type in the active ingredient instead of a brand name it should bring up any generics and it does give the prices as well.

https://sanidad.castillalamancha.es/...os/nomenclator

I agree, the Pharmacy in our town refused to even tell us if the inhaler the wife uses could even be purchased (being private don't want to pay a doctor for a prescription and then pay again).
We popped into the Pharmacy on the way to Alfaz and not only did they sell us one but the lady spoke good English even though I asked her in my bad Spanish.
Mind you it was €48.00

The local Urb is about 30% Uk and 45% Scandinavian so they are used to non Spanish customers.
They told us to come back there anytime we needed and they would see what they could do.

The Health Ministry made a lot of changes to the prices of medications at the end of last year. I was surprised, when I collected my first prescription of 2022 in January, that the price for the 4 items had dropped to €1.78 from the €2.08 they had been previously (as the dependent of a pensioner I only pay 10% of the cost). Just one of them, a statin I take, used to cost €28 a month when I was in the private system, then a cheaper generic version became available and the cost dropped by more than half.

https://www.lasprovincias.es/economi....google.com%2F