A consultation with a skilled professional is a vital part of your protection. We offer a detailed discussion, tailored to your trip, which will include:

• Recommended vaccinations for your destination
• Recommendations and health precautions
• Antimalarial preventative treatment if appropriate
• An opportunity to ask any questions about your health abroad

This takes place in a special 20 minute appointment in our Travel Clinic. There is no charge for this appointment.

Please be aware that there are charges for some travel services.

We cannot provide detailed travel advice in our routine doctor or nurse appointments as we will not have access to all the necessary resources. Patients booking into routine clinics for travel advice are likely to be asked to re-book in our travel clinic, even if in so doing a delay is incurred.

Try to book this appointment for at least 8 weeks before you travel, as some vaccinations need to be given over several weeks.  However, even if you have left it to the last minute, we still recommend booking in to the clinic as there may still be time to vaccinate, and as we will still be able to provide important advice and antimalarial treatment if appropriate.

Please note that at some times of the year there is a high demand for travel clinic appointments and the clinics get booked up very early.  This is particularly so in the early summer months.  We provide extra travel clinic appointments in this peak time and endeavor to make sure everyone has the opportunity to attend.

However there is no substitute for booking in early.  If you leave it too late we cannot guarantee that you will be seen.  Students taking their exams in the summer should be particularly aware of this and be sure not to leave consideration of their travel plans until after the exam period.

Our nurses would be happy to answer any quick questions about travel over the telephone.  We regret that due to high demand for our travel services telephone time is limited and we cannot duplicate the complete services of travel clinic over the telephone. 

For example there is unlikely to be opportunity to look up the current recommendations for your destination or to pull your paper notes to review your childhood vaccinations.  Patients making detailed enquires such as these will be asked to book an appointment in travel clinic, even if in so doing a delay is incurred.

It is a commonly held belief that your NHS GP we will have a complete record of your vaccination history.  Whereas this may once have been the case, vaccinations can be obtained in a variety of places nowadays (e.g. abroad, at school, at independent travel clinics) and information regarding these rarely makes it back into the patient’s NHS GP notes.

Any vaccinations given at an NHS GP surgery will be documented in your NHS GP notes.  This would include most of your childhood vaccinations if you were born and grew up in the UK.  We would be happy to check these for you in your travel clinic appointment.

However please note that we will only have access to these notes if you are currently registered with us as your NHS GP.  If you are living our of our registration area, if you have not been to the surgery for a while or particularly if you have changed address, we may have been obliged to de-register you and return your notes to the Health Authority.  If you are eligible to register with us we will be able to recall them, but this process often takes several months.  Find out more about registration here.

We strongly advise that patients keep their own record of the vaccinations they have received and ask any healthcare professional giving them a vaccination to update it.