From April 2020, the NHS Wales e-Library for Health will no longer provide access to TRAVAX from NHS Scotland following a two-year review of travel health information resources. Should your service or department link to TRAVAX, please note that from April 2020, this link will no longer work and will need to be changed to TravelHealthPro.
Background
The NHS Wales e-Library for Health currently subscribes to TRAVAX produced by NHS Scotland as its Travel Health information resource for healthcare professionals in NHS Wales.
TRAVAX also has a sister publication (FitforTravel) which is aimed at members of the public.
Public Health England recommend that information relating to antimalarial prophylaxis for NHS Wales be sought from TravelHealthPro produced by the National Travel Health Network and Centre (NaTHNaC):
“We recommend health professionals stick to using one resource for country specific malaria recommendations to optimise consistency of advice. Whilst we recognise that other sources of advice are available, healthcare professionals working in England, Wales or Northern Ireland are advised to use the ACMP guidelines as their preferred source of guidance for malaria prevention. They are also available on the NaTHNaC website: https://travelhealthpro.org.uk. Separate guidance is produced in Scotland for Scottish health professionals by the Scottish Malaria Advisory group.” (Public Health England Guidelines for Malaria Prevention in Travellers from the UK, 2019, p. 12)
Survey and analysis
As a result of this recommendation, the NHS Wales e-Library Champions Group with representation from a range of health and care and information disciplines began a piece of work to determine whether the e-Library should change the preferred source of travel health information for NHS Wales from TRAVAX to TravelHealthPro. In February 2019, a survey was distributed to NHS Wales in order to identify which travel health resources health care professionals use, why they use them and what their preferred source is. TravelHealthPro was overwhelmingly identified as the preferred source for travel health information.
Result
Following the survey, the e-Library Champions Group, Service Board, NHS Direct Wales and subject matter experts in travel health information, public health, pharmacy, medicines information and health protection agreed to cancel the national subscription to TRAVAX and direct NHS Wales users and the public to TravelHealthPro from April 2020 when the current contract to TRAVAX expires.
What’s next?
NHS Direct Wales are in the process of updating the NHS Direct Wales website to signpost the public to TravelHealthPro. The NHS Wales e-Library and Champions Group will create an online travel health information subject guide that will be available on the e-Library website in April 2020. The subject guide will promote TravelHealthPro as the preferred source of information for NHS Wales and signpost other sources of information identified by participants in the survey to support end users who need access to this type of information.
Further information
Should you have any queries regarding access to travel health information please do get in touch with the NHS Wales e-Library for Health team.