Travel Health

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Do you need travel vaccinations?

 

 

If you are planning to travel outside the UK your travel health needs will depend on your individual situation and the following considerations:

  • Your general health.
  • Where you are travelling to.
  • Where you will be staying.
  • How long you will be staying.
  • What you will be doing throughout your trip.

Lots of useful travel health information is available online from the Fit for Travel website www.fitfortravel.nhs.uk provided by NHS (Scotland). It is important that you read through the information available online first before contacting NHS Ayrshire & Arran’s Travel Health Service.

Once you have read through the information on the Fit for Travel website you may require an assessment, further advice and vaccinations before you travel.

NHS Ayrshire & Arran’s Travel Health Service

In Ayrshire and Arran, the following services are available if you require travel advice, vaccinations or antimalarial/trip specific medications:

  1. Advice by email/telephone
  2. By outpatient appointment (providing vaccines available free through the NHS)
  3. By referral to specialist travel health service
  4. Through participating community pharmacies providing private service, including antimalarial medication and travel vaccines not provided free by NHS

The first step is for a full travel risk assessment to be carried out. Please contact NHS Ayrshire & Arran’s Travel Health Service by emailing travelhealthenquiries@aapct.scot.nhs.uk for further information. You will then receive a travel risk assessment form to complete and return. A member of the Travel Health Service will then contact you to advise what your next steps are.

What travel vaccines are provided for free by the NHS?

The following travel vaccines continue to be available free on the NHS to citizens living in Scotland for the purpose of travel:

  • Cholera
  • Hepatitis A
  • Diptheria, Polio, tetanus (administered as a combined vaccine)
  • Typhoid

The above vaccines are free as they protect against diseases that are considered to present the greatest risk to public health if they were to be brought into the country.

 

  
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Further Travel Information

The following websites will give you additional travel advice

Travel Health for information of vaccinations available on NHS

MASTA for private vaccination clinics

Gov.uk for specific country travel advice

EHIC to apply for your free European Health Insurance Card