I feel ill and it is not an emergency. Who can I call? (061 Salut Respon)

Call 061. It is Catalonia’s free health advice line, open 24 hours a day, every day of the year, answered by more than 200 doctors, nurses and technicians. Use it when you are ill or worried and it is not a life-threatening emergency.

Does this apply to me

Yes, to anyone in Catalonia. CatSalut states plainly that no coverage of any kind has to be proved to use 061 — “no és necessari acreditar cap tipus de cobertura”. You need no referral. Having your health card (TSI, targeta sanitària individual) to hand helps, because the CIP number on it lets the professional see your clinical history, but if you do not have it you can give your DNI instead. If you would rather not give any personal details at all, use the 061 chat: it never asks for them.

What it costs

Free. The Generalitat lists 061 among its free specialist telephone lines, available 24 hours a day, every day of the year.

What to bring

Nothing, but have three things ready:

• Your health card, or your DNI, or neither if you use the chat.
• Your address.
• The name of any medicine you are taking.

What the operator will ask

Expect your age, your address and the CIP from your health card, so they can open your record and answer properly. Then what is wrong, and how long it has been going on.

Where to go, and how to book

There is nothing to book. Five ways to reach 061, in the order most people should try.

• Phone 061, from anywhere in Catalonia.
• From outside Spain, phone 933 038 158. That number is also answered in English.
• Live chat, on the 061 pages of sem.gencat.cat or in the 061 Salut Respon app. It is anonymous.
• Email 061catsalutrespon at gencat.cat (where this guide writes “at”, type the at-sign).
• The web form, for anything that can wait.

Language

This is the part worth knowing. The operator can switch on a translation service covering more than 90 languages and dialects, and 061 publishes its own invitation in Tagalog: “Kung hindi ka nagsasalita ng alinman sa mga wika ng bansa at mayroon kang anumang mga katanungan, maaari kang tumawag sa 061 Salut Respon at sasagutin ka ng isang pangkat ng mga propesyonal.” Deaf callers can use Catalan sign language by video through the 061 Salut Respon app, under Configuració, Llengua de signes.

What they can actually do

• Give you health advice.
• Tell you which centre to go to and when.
• Send a doctor to your home.
• Send an ambulance.

They also handle health paperwork by telephone:

• Information on applying for or reissuing your health card.
• Access to La Meva Salut, including resending a password email and SMS.
• Waiting lists.
• The pharmacy co-payment charge.
• The advance directives document.
• Complaints or thanks about any public health service.

How long it takes

What happens next

You either get advice and stay at home, or you are told which centre to attend, or a professional is sent to you. The Department of Health’s own reason for calling 061 first is to save you unnecessary waiting and unnecessary journeys: a problem you were about to take to a hospital emergency department may be better handled at your CAP (centre d’atenció primària, the public health centre for your address) or at a CUAP (centre d’urgències d’atenció primària, a 24-hour urgent primary care centre), and 061 will tell you which.

What goes wrong

• Calling 061 for an emergency. It is not the emergency number. If someone is unconscious, badly injured, struggling to breathe, or in immediate danger, call 112 — 061’s own guidance says so.
• Sending an eConsulta message through La Meva Salut and waiting. eConsulta is not monitored for urgent problems.

Useful words

Read next

• What number do I call in an emergency? — for anything life-threatening, 112 comes first.
• How do I get a health card (TSI)? Do I need papers? — 061 can also help with the card itself.
• How do I get a La Meva Salut account? — 061 can resend the password email and SMS.

Official source

SEM, Generalitat de Catalunya, “061 Salut Respon”, sem.gencat.cat/ca/061-salut-respon — the service, its channels and its language support. The “no coverage need be proved” rule is on CatSalut’s own 061 page. Pages read 9 Sep 2026; the channels page itself carries an update date of 20 Jul 2021, so check a number that does not answer.