What Vaccines
Why get Vaccinated
Other FAQ
What is a Travel Health Service?
If you are planning to travel outside of the UK, your travel health needs will depend on your individual situation and will consider:
- Your destination country
- Your accommodation
- How long you will stay
- What you will be doing
- Your general health
Grampian Travel Health Service
You will be able to access information about food and water hygiene, insect bite avoidance, vaccinations required and whether you need tablets to help prevent malaria.
You will get lots of general travel health information from the National Scottish website – Fit for Travel. It is important that you read through the information here first before arranging a travel consultation.
Once you have read through the information on the Fit for Travel website you may require an assessment, advice and vaccinations before you travel. Here in Grampian we have 35 travel clinics run by community pharmacies. Any of these pharmacies will provide you with a full travel risk assessment, general travel health advice and then if required vaccination.
Travel clinic appointments should ideally take place 8 weeks before you intend on travelling to ensure any vaccinations provided take full effect before your trip.
The list of pharmacies who provide this service, their contact details and opening times is available HERE.
Why can I not go and get my vaccinations from my GP practice anymore?
To try and help manage the GP workload and make sure GP’s are using their skills in the best way the Scottish Government along with all of the GPs agreed that giving vaccination should be moved away from General Practice.
You may have already noticed that your GP no longer provides flu vaccination clinics, these are now run by health board staff, usually in different venues. In a similar way a large number of community pharmacists across Grampian are now providing a Travel Health Service. Please see the details for all of the pharmacies taking part above.
Vaccines are provided for free by the NHS
These vaccines are free because they protect against diseases thought to represent the greatest risk to public health if they were brought into the country.
- Revaxis (Diphtheria, tetanus and polio)
- Typhoid
- Hepatitis A
- Cholera
What can I expect when I attend the Community Pharmacy?
- You will receive your consultation in a private room which is fit for purpose.
- The pharmacist will ask about your travel plans, which countries you are travelling to, rural or city sites, what time of year?
- You will be asked about your previous vaccination history. If you have a vaccination card please take it with you.
- The pharmacist will ask about your current and previous health concerns. If you have a repeat medication list, please take it with you.
- The pharmacist will advise you on what vaccinations you require, which ones are provided free on the NHS and which ones you will have to pay for. They will also advise on whether you need to take tablets to help prevent you getting malaria.
- The pharmacist will give you advice on other travel health issues and will give you a leaflet or a web address where you can find out more information.
- If you require vaccination then the pharmacist can give you your vaccination there on the day or they may have to order the vaccine in which case they will arrange another appointment that suits you. They will advise you on any side effects and what you can do to reduce them.
- The pharmacist will record all of the vaccinations they give you and this will be entered into your GP notes.
- If you need to pay for any vaccines, you will need to pay the pharmacist at the time you get your jab.
- The pharmacist may ask you to complete a feedback form. This is so NHS Grampian can regularly review the service and make sure patients are accessing the most appropriate care. Please do complete this information if asked to.
Language Line is available at all vaccination appointments. This is a telephone-based interpretation service which gives staff access to expert interpreters, on the telephone, in 60-90 seconds, for over 170 different languages.
Also available:
- Portable hearing loops
- A quiet space/room
- All sites are wheelchair accessible
- All sites have access to language line