preparing for the future
In order to provide a comprehensive service, travel clinics should be run by a trained clinician
that your practice has sufficient space, it may be that a small room dedicated to a travel clinic could be more applicable. Traditionally, when people needed medical advice and information about travelling abroad, they made an appointment to see their GP with the primary aim of getting the required travel jabs. But with global mobility enabling greater travel freedom, and an increasing number of people making international journeys more frequently, providing such an ad-hoc service may be insufficient. A dedicated travel health clinic may be an option for some practices whose patient demographic demands it. This would enable patients travelling abroad to access professional, up-to-date and reliable advice, which is provided by a trained clinician and extends beyond simply giving the necessary vaccinations. Providing a specialist travel clinic may not be viable for many practices, but for others it is a route to a measurable
16 october 2013
standard of care. To ascertain demand, it may be worth running an audit of travellers seen in the practice over a certain period, for example three to six months. This should incorporate peaks in demand over the summer period when most people plan their trips abroad, as well as other times when fewer patients visit for travel advice, to give a picture of average demand throughout the year. Once you have established a need,
you should balance this and the benefits of setting up and running a clinic against the associated costs, which include staff time, clinic room availability and equipment, overheads and supplies. Of key importance is adequate provision of refrigerator space with the capacity to stock a large number of vaccines throughout the year – it’s imperative to maintain the ‘cold chain’ of 2°C to 8°C from dispatch of the product to storage at the practice – and up-to-date
refrigeration insurance should also be in place. In order to provide a comprehensive service, travel clinics should be run by a trained clinician. If your practice does not have a member of staff trained to deliver immunisations and offer pre-travel advice, ask around to see whether there is interest among GPs or nurses. It’s worth highlighting the job satisfaction associated with running a dedicated clinic, as well as the training and development options on offer, for example through the Royal College of Nursing’s competency framework for nurses working in travel health medicine. While both options are, of course,
not without their challenges, if planned and implemented in a practice that, most importantly, is an area with demand for them, they can give practices’ income a much-needed boost. It might be worth considering what that spare broom cupboard could morph into. ¾
primary provider
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