From 01/04/2022 travel health services will no longer be provided by your GP Surgery.

Please use the link belowto determine which vaccines are required for your travels and for travel advice

https://www.fitfortravel.nhs.uk/home.aspx

Four travel vaccines are available on the NHS (Typhoid, Hepatitis A, DTP (Diphtheria Tetanus and Polio combined vaccine) and Cholera) at no direct cost to the patient at present (1/04/2022).

To see the requirements for the country of destination - use the link below

https://www.fitfortravel.nhs.uk/destinations

To book travel vaccines please do not contact your GP Surgery instead 

You can make an appointment with a travel health professional via NHS Informhttps://www.nhs.uk/conditions/travel-vaccinations/. Please be aware that your initial risk assessment may be over the phone or by video call.

If you need help to understand how to access a travel health risk assessment in Scotland, please call the NHS Inform helpline on 0800 22 44 88. The NHS Inform helpline is open from 8.00am to 6.00pm Monday to Friday. ​

Due to the inordinate demand for travel vaccinations and travel advice this service has been centralised, removed from General Practice and very often now moved into the private sector. This is fair! Before and since the CoVid pandemic - the number of our patients travelling abroad and requiring vaccinations has risen vastly (even more the case with coronavirus and influenza vaccines).Furthermore there are peak times for this international travel and GP surgeries have been unable to cope with this demand.

Please also remember that travel vaccinations ARE NOT just a jag - and often require advice, discussion and explanations! They can require a lot of time discussing health risks and potential epidemics in the areas which our patients are travelling to – including CoVid, malaria, schistosomiasis and other tropical diseases.

PRESCRIBING MEDICINES FOR USE OUTSIDE OF THE UK

 “Antimalarials should not be prescribed on the NHS for prophylaxis” – DoH 1995 (FMSL(95) 7)

 Patients should be advised and it is the patient's responsibility to find out if there are any restrictions on taking medicines either prescribed or bought from a pharmacy in and out of the UK or to the country they will be visiting. The UK Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) website (www.fco.gov.uk) has a full list of foreign embassies in the UK. (www.nhs.uk).

 Under NHS legislation, the NHS ceases to have responsibility for people when they leave the U.K. However, to ensure good patient care the following guidance is offered. People travelling within Europe should be advised to carry the European Health Insurance Card (EHIC) and everyone should obtain adequate holiday insurance cover.

 Medication required for a pre-existing condition should be provided in sufficient quantity to cover the journey and to allow the patient to obtain medical attention abroad. If the patient is returning within the timescale of a normal prescription (usually one month) then this should be issued, providing this is clinically appropriate.

 Doctors are clinically and legally responsible for any results of a decision to prescribe medicines. In view of this, it would NOT be considered good clinical practice to prescribe large amounts of medicines to a patient going abroad for an extended period of time and whose progress the GP is unable to monitor. Thus the maximum medication supplied to a patient travelling abroad will be 56 days supply AND that this is only on the understanding that their departure from the UK will be less than 3 months. 

 Regulation 25, Schedule 5 of NHS (GMS services contracts) regulations 2004 states that “where notification has been received from a patient that they intend to be away from the UK for a period of at least 3 months then they should be removed from the GP practice list and only 28 days supply of medication can be prescribed". The GP practice should notify their local NHS Trust / Health Board. The patient should be advised to register with a local doctor for continuing medication (this may need to be paid for by the patient). It is wise for the patient to check with the manufacturer that medicines required are available in the country being visited.