UK sets the standard for nurse-led travel health services

Helsinki 2008

Trisha Crisp also went along to Helsinki, courtesy of the RCN Travel Health Forum – here’s her report.

I was the second lucky winner of the draw and what an exciting prize it turned out to be, both socially and educationally! It was great to put faces to well-known names that appear so often in travel medicine literature.

I had attended NECTM 2006 in Edinburgh so I was aware of the many opportunities this conference held in store. The comprehensive programme was packed and I wished I could have been in two parallel symposia at the same time.

As always when multinational delegates meet at conferences there is a great deal of lively and interesting debate – especially regarding the use of clinical guidelines and evidence-based practice. For example, Ron Behrens from the UK rarely gives yellow fever vaccination to travellers to Kenya as there has been no incidence of this disease in travellers in the last 10 years. However, this goes against the body of evidence from Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and WHO.

Malaria protection

Antimalarial prophylaxis is another great debating topic. No two nations do the same (standby treatment is given frequently in Germany) and we all agreed that guidelines inform the practitioner, but do not relieve clinicians of their responsibility. Advice given to travellers should be based on training, knowledge and experience.

Rabies vaccination would also appear to have differing national guidelines. The CDC/WHO consider a complete three-dose course to be sufficient without any further boosts. Animated debate came to the same conclusion as always – base your decision on a comprehensive risk assessment.

By far the most interesting session
for me – Travel Medicine Standards and Education – was held on the last day. It was universally acknowledged that the UK is leading by example in both regulation and educational standards.

I was surprised to learn that we are the only country where travel medicine is managed predominantly by nurses. In Scandinavia, Denmark, Germany and Ireland it is executed by nurses (or even lay people) merely following the doctor’s orders.

The UK also leads the way in education and the Competency Framework for Nurses in Travel Health (in which the RCN Travel Health Forum played such an
integral part) was acclaimed by all countries participating in this particular debate.

What next?

Get ready for the next NECTM in Hamburg 2010 and you too might glean snippets of useful information such as:

  • 30 per cent of drugs coming to the EU are counterfeit
  • Mussels cooked in water on gas are still positive for hep A after boiling for nine minutes!
  • Paganini had Marfan’s syndrome and died of syphilis!

So now you know.