A travel nurse's Christmas list

Dear Santa

Travel is a very complex part of the General Practice Nurse role and if you could grant me any wishes instead of presents for this group of wonderfully dedicated healthcare professionals this is what I would like!

• Please could you let the nurses know that I have recently updated ‘Malaria Matters’ which is my malaria prevention e learning course. This will teach them all about the 2015 version of ‘Guidelines for malaria prevention in travellers from the UK.’ This is a lengthy course but is free of charge and those who have completed it have evaluated it consistently at 5 stars and really enjoyed the learning experience. See http://www.janechiodini.co.uk/education/malaria-course/

• Even on your travels Santa, it may be of value to know about the alerts the Foreign and Commonwealth Office send out via their Facebook page and which they have also listed on their main site. For example, only the other day I had a notification about Singapore which said ‘drunk and disorderly conduct are treated seriously; you can’t bring vaporisers, like e-cigarettes, e-pipes, e-cigars, and refills into the country – these items are likely to be confiscated, and you could be fined or sent to prison.’ The GPN could direct her patients to one page I’ve created which would combine many of the links the travellers would be wise to look at pre-travel http://www.janechiodini.co.uk/news/help/tar

• Please could nurses be given sufficient time at work to check and ascertain which NHS travel vaccines they have patient group directions in place for. Of late many CCGs have stopped supplying them and if the nurse hasn’t realised, it could be that she is inadvertently giving the vaccines without any prescription in place, which would of course be illegal. The NHS vaccines are hepatitis A, typhoid, polio, cholera and any combined vaccine that has one of these disease protections in it. If the GPN finds she doesn’t have the correct documentation, she then needs to ensure either a prescription or a patient specific direction is signed and in place instead before administering the vaccine. Could GPNs be reminded that the RCN competency document includes a risk management form with all the details that need to be included on a PSD. A sample of this form can be found in item 2 at http://www.janechiodini.co.uk/tools/ . NHS England is discussing the possibility of writing PGDs in the future, but this is not clear cut as yet and may take some time to resolve I fear.

• Please could you alert all GPNs undertaking travel that unless their employers officially opt out of this additional service (which their practice is paid for within the global sum) then they have to offer a travel service. The appointment must include a travel risk assessment prior to deciding which vaccines should be recommended and giving appropriate advice. Some practices are telling travellers they have to go to a private travel clinic to find out what they need, for which they have to pay a fee and then they return to the surgery to receive these vaccines. This is incorrect procedure and puts the nurses at risk. They should not be administering vaccines when they or anyone in their surgery hasn’t had any part of the risk assessment. Even worse, some practices are just sending travellers to clinics and not undertaking any travel service at all, but don’t notify their CCG and are still receiving income for the work. In this situation they are working illegally and this is fraudulent behaviour! More information is available about these last two points at http://www.janechiodini.co.uk/news/faqs/

• And finally Santa I would wish all the GPNs a good rest over the festive season and that perhaps they could win the lottery so they can also travel next year and see some of these exotic tropical destinations they’re so good at giving advice about!

Love Jane x

PS. Jane has been a very good girl this year. Ed.