Badly behaved Brits abroad: Arrests and hospitalisation figures up
Rex
It seems 'boozy' British holidaymakers are doing nothing to boost their reputation abroad.
The Foreign and Commonwealth Office release its official figures from its annual British Behaviour Abroad (BBA) Report today.
A key finding from this year's report is that popular holiday hotspots including Spain, Greece and Egypt have seen a significant increase in the number of hospitalisations reported to consular staff.
Last year, on average, 10 British people were hospitalised every day while abroad; in Majorca, hospital admissions more than doubled, while in Ibiza they rose 40%.
The most common cause of hospital admissions? Car accidents, followed balcony falls and heart attacks, according to the Express.
The statistics show that in the last year Foreign Office staff handled 19,874 assistance cases – up three per cent from the previous year.
As well as hospitalisations, the number of deaths, rapes and cases involving lost or stolen passports also rose.
The Foreign Office reported that 6,237 Britons died while overseas, up from 5,972 in 2010/11, while rape cases went up from 115 to 127. The number of lost or stolen passports rose to 28,569 from 25,969 in 2010/11.
Egypt saw the highest number of reported sexual assaults (24), closely followed by Turkey (23).
The latest statistics follow the arrest figures that were released on 28 June.
Those figures showed that more than 6,000 got into trouble last year, an increase of six per cent on 2010.
Half of those arrested were aged under 34, with Spain topping the list for the most number of Britons arrested. In Mallorca alone, 320 were held, a rise of 64 per cent in a year.
And it seems Brits have no idea about how much it costs to get help in emergencies abroad.
A poll of 2,000 holidaymakers found that nearly half (48%) of Brits did not realise that without travel insurance they would be liable to pay for their own medical bills if injured or taken ill abroad.
Nearly four out of five (78%) people admitted that they would not have the money to hand to pay £10,000 to cover hospital bills of an uninsured loved one abroad.
And, nearly one in four (24%) people who have taken out travel insurance have never checked whether their policy covers medical repatriation.
Jeremy Browne, Consular services minister, told the Telegraph: "While the prospect of ending up in a foreign hospital may be the last thing on your mind as you head overseas for a summer break, sometimes things do go wrong on holiday and many people deeply regret not taking out comprehensive travel insurance.
"We witness many cases where people have invalidated their policy – perhaps by not declaring a pre-existing medical condition or not checking their policy covers a particular activity, such as hiring a moped.
"Unfortunately they are then surprised that the Foreign Office cannot pay for their bills and flight home."
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