health
How to find medical help out-of-hours in France
Doctor appointments and pharmacy support is more difficult to find but is available
Medical advice can be harder to find during the evening, weekends, and public holidays, but not all services are closed.
Your main doctor (médecin traitant) surgery may be open from 08:00 to 20:00 on weekdays, and sometimes on Saturday mornings.
Call the surgery to see if you can arrange an appointment. If your doctor is not available the surgery may be able to provide details of a colleague to see you.
There is a national out-of-hours helpline on 116 117 where paid volunteer GPs take calls to help people.
They can point you in the direction of a GP who is available, including home appointments and walk-in centres.
Out-of-hours doctor help
You can also look for maisons médicales de garde in your area. These are on-call medical centres offering out-of-hours care when other surgeries are closed.
These centres are typically linked to local hospitals, multidisciplinary clinics etc and provide care for medical issues that require diagnosis and treatment outside of typical hours.
Prices for an appointment are typically higher than a standard doctor – with exact costs depending on the time of the appointment, whether it is a home visit, etc – but remain reimbursed at 70% by Assurance Maladie, with the remaining costs often mostly covered by a top-up mutuelle.
Find your nearest maison médicales de garde through a Google search, or the Santé.fr website.
Other out-of-hours practices not linked to the maisons médicales de garde service may be available in your area, particularly in more urban locations.
You can find these through medical websites such as Doctolib. They can include online téléconsultations that do not require a home visit or for you to go to a doctor’s office/medical centre.
An alternative is the SOS Médecins, which offers similar out-of-hours advice and appointments.
You can call them on 3624 (€0.15 per minute plus price of a call on your contract), use the official app, or find your nearest branch using the online map. Not all areas of the country are covered.
Doctors in the service accept the carte Vitale, so appointments and home visits are usually covered by Assurance Maladie and your mutuelle.
Finally, some private companies offer online consultations out-of-hours, via phone or virtual appointments. They can write prescriptions for medicine and some also accept the carte Vitale. Examples include Qare.
While hospitals typically do not schedule outpatient appointments on the evenings and weekends, emergency rooms are open 24/7 and see patients.
However, in some cases the urgences departments accept only life-threatening cases, and otherwise ask people to call emergency services before self-admittance.
You can call for emergency medical help via 15, or 112, the Europe-wide emergency number, where you may receive English-language help. They will be able to point you towards the right type of care required (out-of-hours appointment, emergency room visit, etc).
What about pharmacies?
Pharmacies also see reduced service on evenings, Sundays, and public holidays.
In larger areas, there is usually a pharmacy open on Sundays and in the evening to provide access. This can either be one designated pharmacy, or a number of pharmacies rotate the duty.
Check online to see what services are available in your area, or ask at a pharmacy during open hours. You can do this in advance to have the information on hand if needed.
You can also call 3237 (calls cost €0.35 per minute) or visit 3237.fr to check for open pharmacies near you.
However, in rural areas you may not be able to find a local pharmacy open out of usual hours. In this case you can contact a doctor using one of the resources above and see what help they can provide.
You can see more information in our article here.
It is generally advised to ensure you have a stock of typical medicine (painkillers, ibuprofen, cough medicine, etc) at home to avoid running out if pharmacies are closed.
Unlike in the UK most medicines in France including basic painkillers can only be purchased at pharmacies.
