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Many elderly Britons who fall ill while abroad are facing costly treatment and repatriation bills, a report has said.
The Foreign Office says people buy travel insurance but often fail to declare pre-existing conditions.
The annual report, British Behaviour Abroad, is based on cases reported to its global staff between April 2009 and March 2010.
Meanwhile, the Association of British Insurers said total medical bill payments hit a high of £274m in 2009.
The Foreign Office also said 944 Britons were arrested for drug-related offences last year.
This accounts for a seventh of all arrests of British nationals around the world.
The report shows that overall most Britons (5,283) needed consular assistance in Spain.
However, as a proportion of British visitors and residents, most assistance was needed by Britons in Thailand (957), Pakistan (273) and Cyprus (736).
There were 5,930 reported deaths of UK citizens abroad, including natural causes, accidental deaths and unlawful killings, compared with 5,629 deaths the previous year. Proportionally, most Britons died in Thailand (292) Germany (563) and Cyprus (323).
A total of 6,439 Britons were arrested or detained abroad in 2009/10, 3,689 were hospitalised and 19,839 needed consular assistance.
This compares with 6,919 Britons arrested or detained in 2008/09, when there were 3,146 hospitalisations and 19,387 needing consular help.
The highest number of hospitalisations in 2009/10 occurred in Spain (831), followed by Greece (471) and Egypt (235).
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