Travel health education

Since early 2020, the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic has led to unprecedented international border closures and travel restrictions. Consequently, the TRAVAX team are aware that healthcare professionals who provide travel medicine services may not have engaged in related clinical practice for some time, and wish to raise awareness of travel health education courses currently available in the UK.

In recent months, the faculty of travel medicine at the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons in Glasgow (RCPSG) has launched some new courses, including a professional development certificate in travel medicine and a postgraduate diploma in travel medicine. Details of other travel health education courses available in the UK can be found on the TRAVAX courses page.

Guidance on minimum training standards for healthcare professionals delivering travel health services, including competency frameworks and tools, are freely available.

• Competencies: travel health nursing: career and competence development, provided by the Royal College of Nursing (RCN) has been written for nurses, but is applicable to other healthcare professionals providing travel health services, including doctors and pharmacists. 
• Good practice guidance for providing a travel health service, provided by the RCPSG faculty of travel medicine, details essential competencies that a practitioner should be able to evidence, and includes an example of a competency assessment tool.

Source: TRAVAX, 11 August 2021