The post-Brexit rule that Britons can only spend 90 days in every 180 in Spain has meant that UK citizens must apply for visas if they want to live there longer.
Thousands of retirees in Spain rely on charities such as the British Legion or Age Concern because their families live in Britain and accessing Spanish social services is not easy because of language problems.
Michelle Greenwood, secretary and fundraising manager with Age Concern on the Costa del Sol who has lived in Spain for 15 years, said that before Britain voted to leave the European Union, the charity had up to 30 volunteers. Now, however, it had only five.
An elderly couple in Vigo, Spain. Charities say a lack of volunteers is leaving elderly Britons without care (Photo: David Benito/Getty Images)“That does not happen now because obviously they are limited for their days so that scares people off. That has cut down on the number of volunteers.”
“People have come over and stayed in the English world as they have never entered the Spanish one. People hope nothing happens to them but when it does they struggle to cope,” she said.
She said that it was difficult to care for someone while living abroad.
'In the UK you live to work. Spain is the other way around. We'll never go back'
Read More“It took us more than a year to get an appointment with a neurologist over here.”
“There are fewer people moving to Spain and fewer people buying holiday homes and volunteering. It is a ticking time bomb,” she said.
Dr Hall, a contributor to the book Retirement Migrants and Dependents: Caring for Sunseekers, which challenges the conception of Britons who retire to live in Spain, said many moved to be near their families, but without language skills or friends, they became isolated.
Some 400,000 Britons are residents in Spain, according to the Spanish National Statistics Institute, but the number of pensioners is unknown.
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