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REVEALED: How long does it take to get a doctor’s appointment in France?

When it comes to seeing a doctor in France, you can wait as little as three days to as long as 42 to get an appointment, according to new data. But waiting times depend heavily on the different specialties and where you live.

Published: 23 April 2024 10:07 CEST
REVEALED: How long does it take to get a doctor's appointment in France?
A doctor welcomes an elderly patient at the public Health Centre in Sainte-Croix-Volvestre, southwestern France in 2023. (Photo by Charly TRIBALLEAU / AFP)

In France, half of all GP appointments are available within three days from the time of booking, according to a study carried out by French booking website Doctolib, using data from its platform.

But patients have to wait longer to see specialist doctors, Docotlib reveals.

Half of all appointments with pediatricians are available in less than a week.

This is followed by dentists and midwives, with an average period of 11 days before the first available appointment. Next, there were psychiatrists (16 days), gynecologists (22 days), and ophthalmologists (25 days).

The Doctolib site allows patients in France to book the next available appointments with most GPs and other medical specialists via its easy to use booking platform.

READ MORE: How to use: French medical website Doctolib

As for the specialties where patients have to wait the longest to see a doctor – dermatologists were second to last – with the average person waiting 36 days. The longest waits were to see cardiologists with patients often having to wait at least 42 days for an appointment.

The medical platform said there was an explanation for the significant differences in wait times: “Dermatology typically requires less urgent care, while most emergencies related to cardiology are referred to the hospital.”

As for physiotherapists, the only para-medical profession looked into within the study, half of all appointments were available within less than six days.

What about video consultations?

The study also looked at the use of the ‘tele-consultation’ (video appointments) tool, and it found that opting for this can significantly speed up appointment wait times.

When using the tele-consultation option, the median wait times for GP and pediatrician appointments dropped to just one day. For midwives, it went down to two days, and then four days for gynecologists, seven days for cardiologists, eight days for dermatologists, and 17 days for psychiatrists.

What about regional disparities?

According to OECD data, France has 32 doctors for every 10,000 people, slightly below the OECD average of 37.

However, they are not equally distributed – about a third of France is considered to be a ‘medical desert’, meaning there is a shortage of doctors . It’s usually used to mean places that have a shortage of GPs or family doctors, which can make it hard for patients to find a regular doctor to register with.

READ MORE: MAP: Where in France has the best access to healthcare?

The Docotlib study noted that their findings do not reveal the disparities between France’s départements, and even within départements themselves.

“About 15 départements across France were found to be in a particularly challenging position regarding wait times in comparison to the rest of the country.

“[These areas] saw median waiting times at least twice as long as the average for at least three of the different specialties,” Doctolib noted.

These départements with the longest wait times were Gers, Saône-et-Loire, Nièvre and Territoire de Belfort, Loiret, Cher, Deux-Sèvres, Ardèche, Eure, Calvados, Manche, Loire-Atlantique and Côtes d’Armor, Pas-de-Calais.

Have things got better or worse?

In terms of whether the situation has improved in recent years, well the data shows there has not been much of change.

Between 2021 and 2023, “the median appointment wait times for different specialties either only slightly changed or did not change at all, which is an encouraging sign given the increase in demand for post-Covid care and the decline in the number of doctors available,” Doctolib wrote.

Doctolib carried out the study using data from appointments made using its platform. It is important to note that medical appointments in France can be secured a number of different ways, with other websites available, as well as the possibility to request appointments in person or on the phone.

As a result, GP consultations made via Doctolib accounted for a little under half of the total GP visits in France.

The platform recorded 87.6 million GP visits in 2023 via its website, out of more than 200 million total GP consultations in France.

Member comments

  1. We’re very fortunate to have one (Spanish) GP in our village, and she is excellent, caring, very very hard pressed and works all hours. Still for a non-urgent appointment (eg prescription renewal) wait time is up to two months. If we’re lucky, decent hospital care in some specialties is available in Avranches, 40 km away, but for the best care in others we often have to drive cross-country to Caen, 100+km away.

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TRAVEL NEWS

What’s the deal with passport stamping in France?

There are clear guidelines in place about who should have their passport stamped when they enter or leave France - but the letter of the law doesn't always seem to be applied on the ground. Here's what you need to know.

Published: 17 May 2024 14:24 CEST
What's the deal with passport stamping in France?

When you pass through a French border control post, officers will check your passport and – in some cases – stamp the date of your entry or exit of the country onto one of the blank pages in the booklet.

Although the system should be clear and simple, it becomes complicated when conflicting information is given on the ground.

Here’s what the rules say, and whether it’s really a problem if your passport is incorrectly stamped.

Who should be stamped?

The purpose of the date stamps for entry and exit is to calculate how long you have been in France, and therefore whether you have overstayed your allowed time – whether that is the time allowed by a short-stay Schengen visa or the visa-free 90-day allowance that certain non-EU nationals benefit from. 

Those people who are exempt from 90-day restrictions should therefore not have their passports stamped.

EU passport – people who have an EU passport should not have it stamped, because they have the right to unlimited stays due to EU freedom of movement.

Dual nationals – people who have passports of both EU and non-EU countries should not be stamped when they are travelling on their EU passport. However, because the passports of dual nationals are not ‘linked’, those travelling on their non-EU passports will be stamped, unless they have other proof of residency.

READ ALSO What are the rules for dual-nationals travelling in France?

French residents – the passports of non-EU citizens who have a residency permit in France (carte de séjour) should not be stamped, because they have the right to stay in France for as long as their permit is valid.

Visa holders – people who have a long-stay visa or a short-stay visitor visa should not be stamped, because they have the right to stay in France for as long as their visa is valid. 

Tourists/visitors – people making short visits to France who do not have a visa should be stamped, with the stamps keeping track of their 90-day allowance. Visitors from nationalities who do not benefit from the 90-day rule (eg Indians) are also stamped.

Travel practicalities

When crossing a French border, you should present your passport along with other documents – visa or carte de séjour – if relevant. Don’t wait for border guards to ask whether you are a resident.

It should be noted that the carte de séjour is not a travel document and cannot be used to cross borders, not even internal Schengen zone borders. The only valid travel documents for entering France are a passport or national ID card. Any other forms of ID – driving licence, residency card etc – cannot be used for travel purposes.

Border problems

While the rules on stamping are simple in theory, many readers of The Local have reported having their passports incorrectly stamped at the border, and this seems to be a particular problem for non-EU nationals who are resident in France.

Travellers are also often given incorrect information by border guards – for example being told that only holders of the post-Brexit Article 50 TUE carte de séjour are exempt from stamping, that all non-EU nationals must have their passports stamped or that only being married to a French national exempts you from stamping.

None of these are correct.

It’s also sometimes the case that people whose passports should be stamped – tourists, visitors and second-home owners who don’t have a visa – do not receive the stamp. For frequent visitors this can be a problem because it looks as though they have had a long stay in France, due to their exit not being recorded.

The system of stamping itself is also a bit haphazard with stamps scattered throughout the passport book in random order, so border guards sometimes make mistakes and miss an entry or exit stamp and therefore think that people have overstayed when they haven’t.

So how much of a problem actually is it if your passport is wrongly stamped?

It’s one thing to know the rules yourself, it’s quite another to have an argument with a border guard, in French, when a long queue is building behind you. Numerous Local readers have reported feeling that they had no choice but to accept a stamp when an implacable guard insisted upon it.

But is this really a problem?

One thing is clear – if you are a resident of France then you have the right to re-enter, and your proof of residency (visa or carte de séjour) takes precedence over any passport stamps. So it’s not a question of being barred from the country – it can, however, be inconvenient as it might lead to delays at the border while your passport record is queried.

Meanwhile people who did not receive correct exit stamps can be incorrectly told that they have over-stayed and even be liable for a fine. 

Will the new EES passport control system improve this?

Theoretically, the EU’s new Entry & Exit System – which does away with the manual stamping of passports – should get rid of these problems.

However, as we have seen, theory and what actually happens on the ground are two different things.

The EES system, due to come into effect later this year, brings in two main changes – it makes passport checks more secure by adding diometric data such as fingerprints and facial scans and it does away with manual stamping of passports and replaces it with scans which automatically calculate how long people have been in France.

You can read full details of how it works HERE. 

So that should eliminate the problems of unclear stamps, stamps being read wrongly or passports not getting the stamps they need.

Residents in France – carte de séjour and visa holders – are not required to complete EES checks and should have a separate system at ports, airports and railway terminals.

However, at present it’s pretty common for border guards to give incorrect information to non-EU residents who are resident in the EU – let’s hope that they are properly briefed before EES is deployed.

Have you had problems with passports being incorrectly stamped? Please share your experiences in the comments section below

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