Good morning all I. I had seen somewhere about S1 forms on the site can someone advise before I call HMRC. In order to move forward with CPAM we are required along with obviously lots of other paperwork a refusal for S1 . We’re not retirement age or working in France . Thanks
Info straight from the horse’s mouth!
There’s also a helpline about National Insurance and S1 matters in Newcastle - in my experience, they are very helpful: +44 191 203 7010
Make sure you have your National Insurance number and, if possible, your NHS number to hand when you call.
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You need a specific letter from the NHS saying that you are no longer covered by the UK state system. Which is called a legislation letter and should be sent in French and English to your address here. It’s not a refusal for an S1 that you need.
If the number given above doesn’t work to get through to DWP overseas health teams try+44 0191 218 1999.
This is the link from NHS website:
https://faq.nhsbsa.nhs.uk/knowledgebase/article/KA-26155/en-us
Since Brexit you can only get an S1 from the UK if you have reached UK retirement age.
The only exceptions to that are, I believe, if you are a crossborder worker.
Otherwise I believe the UK won’t issue you an S1 until you request from your UK state retirement date. There might be an exception for students too I think.
If you can’t provide an S1 then it seems it’s either you providing your own separate insurance or you can apply to France for entry to health system via PUMA. For that case CPAM warned me enquiries are deeper (there’s more they want to know particularly about your means) and take a long time. CPAM basically told me if you’ve got any chance of getting an S1 from the UK try for it as it makes life so much easier for all concerned.
Based on older comments I checked out on here from those much more experienced than myself, I would say the non-S1 route is a lot harder.
It most certainly is harder but it’s not impossible as PUMA was set up for just this sort of situation (early retirees and the like who wouldn’t be in the French system either via an S1 or by working in France)
As @JaneJones has indicated the OP will need a specific letter from the NHS and then they can start geting into PUMA
We arrived before retirement age and used normal route for getting into State health system. Wasn’t hard, but did require the right bits of paper. If your documents are in order it is just a touch slow in some areas. I think it could be many people find it challenging as it is their first introduction to French bureaucracy! They were perhaps expecting a straightforward, logical system with an ability to check progress 
. They only asked us for repeat documents a few times…and only lost my original birth certificate once.
Hello all and thank you again for all the input. I did call HMRC outside UK this afternoon and they were very helpful. Hope to receive our letter 15 to 20 days .
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Haha I only got asked for the same vast set of documents by CPAM twice after they lost almost everything from the complete set already submitted.
That included an original apostilled (expensive) birth certificate. The replacement cost of which I calculated at over £70. Weirdly though as soon as they received the S1 things got a lot easier. Even though the original apostilled birth certificate was in the original documents given as required and they admitted they lost it, they didn’t then ask for a replacement which was nice of them.
After that it was just them contradicting themselves, then telling me I could never rely on anything they said on the telephone nor anything they had said even in a personal appointment at their offices face to face, then just one request for a document they were not entitled to ask for. Simples really 
From the experience of others, when you receive your S1’s, copy them and store them away somewhere safe so you can retrieve them later if called on to do so. We scanned ours in and have them safely tucked away in an online cloud storage facility so can easily reprint them.
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I have a secure digital store of every family document that is likely to be relevant.
Of course, that’s my interpretation of ‘likely to be relevant’ and not a French Bureaucrat’s. 
Hahaha if it exists, in France it’s relevant 
Why online, Graham? What’s wrong with disks and backups at home?
(Being deliberately controversial here, I know 
)
By the way - kazz4662 isn’t getting an S1, she’s getting a letter saying she can’t have one…
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fire or water damage I guess.
Someone here…ahem… photocopied and scanned her S1. Then some time later realised the S1 has two sides. Had to do it all again. Ahem.
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break-ins, fire, loss from partner “decluttering” - need I go on? 
Instills confidence !! I hope ours is smoother altogether nothinf has been straight forward so far !
As opposed to what can - and does - happen to on-line storage? OK - you can do that if you like but I prefer to have things under my own control and I have off-site backups in another location anyway. I suppose I am allergic to cloud solutions for everything when simpler things often work at least as well. However, we’ll never agree on that one so I shall now retire and hunt for some wine 
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isn’t that the same as being in the cloud 
Don’t let Karen put you off @kazz4662 ! You’ll get there and these things vary hugely from one departement to another so please don’t assume the worst!
and it it doesn’t happen - result!!!
Fail to prepare, prepare to fail etc etc etc…
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Absolutely!!