Travel Clinic

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Travel Health Clinic

Our practice nurses are well qualified to administer all travel vaccinations. Please allow up to 15 to 20 minutes for your appointment if your travel is extensive, as our practice nurse will give you vaccination information prior to your vaccination.

Please also ensure that you leave sufficient time prior to your travel for all vaccinations to be administered and important information given to you.

There may be a charge for some of your travel vaccinations.

Please ask our reception staff for our current vaccination charges.

Prior to your travel and appointment with the practice nurse, please complete a Travel Health Questionnaire by clicking the link or alternatively, collect one from reception.

We ask that you hand this completed questionnaire into reception before your appointment date with the practice nurse.

Important information - Practice Policy on Prescribing Benzodiazepines (e.g. Diazepam) For Fear of Flying

At Broomhill and Lodge Moor Surgeries, we will not prescribe Diazepam for patients who wish to use this for a fear of flying.

There are several reasons why we have taken this decision:

Diazepam is a sedative. This means, the medication makes you sleepy and more relaxed. If there would be an emergency during the flight, this could impair your ability to concentrate, follow instructions, or react to the situation. This could seriously affect the safety of you and the people around you.

Sedative drugs can make you fall asleep, however, when you sleep it is an unnatural non-REM sleep. This means, your movements during sleep are reduced and this can place you at an increased risk of developing blood clots (DVT). These blood clots are very dangerous and can even prove fatal. This risk further increases if your flight is over 4 hours long.

Although most people respond to benzodiazepines like Diazepam with sedation, a small proportion experiences the opposite effect and can become aggressive. They can also lead to disinhibition and make you behave in ways you normally wouldn’t. This could also impact on your safety and the safety of your fellow passengers or could lead you to get in trouble with the law.

National prescribing guidelines followed by doctors also don’t allow the use of benzodiazepines in cases of phobia. Any doctor prescribing diazepam for a fear of flying would be taking a significant legal risk as this goes against these guidelines. Benzodiazepines are only licensed for short-term use in a crisis in generalised anxiety. If this is the problem you suffer with, you should seek proper care and support for your mental health, and it would not be advisable to go on a flight.

In several countries, diazepam and similar drugs are illegal. They would be confiscated, and you might find yourself in trouble with the law for being in control of an illegal substance.

Diazepam has a long half-life. This means it stays in your system for a significant time and you may fail random drug testing if you are subjected to such testing as is required in some jobs.

We appreciate that a fear of flying is very real and very frightening and can be debilitating. However, there are much better and effective ways of tackling the problem.

We recommend you tackle your problem with a Fear of Flying Course, which is run by several airlines.

For more information please follow the links below

NHS Website https://www.nhs.uk/mental-health/conditions/phobias/treatment/

Easy Jet http://www.fearlessflyer.easyjet.com

British Airways http://www.flyingwithconfidence.com

Virgin https://flyingwithoutfear.co.uk

Updated 01/01/2023