The National Travel Health Network and Centre, NaTHNaC, has been created to promote clinical standards in travel medicine with the broad goal of Protecting the Health of British Travellers. We do this by improving the quality of travel health advice available to GP practices and other healthcare providers.

NaTHNaC was created by the Department of Health in 2002. We are now commissioned by the Public Health England(PHE) and hosted by University College London Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust. We work in partnership with our network founders:

• Hospital for Tropical Diseases
• Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine (LSTM)
• London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine (LSHTM)
• Public Health England, Travel and Migrant Health Section.

NaTHNaC is based at UCLH NHS Foundation Trust at 250 Euston Road, London. We also have staff at the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine.

NaTHNaC's goals:

• To develop consistent and authoritative national guidance on general health matters for health professionals advising the public travelling abroad, and to disseminate this information widely.
• To provide guidance on specific situations relating to the health of travellers.
• To carry out surveillance of infectious and non-infectious hazards abroad, producing accessible regular output of such surveillance.
• To administer the Yellow Fever Vaccination Centres in England, Wales and Northern Ireland.
• To engage the major stakeholders concerned with travel health especially the travel industry, insurance industry and government bodies, to assist both in sentinel surveillance and to engage in constructive dialogue towards a unified prevention approach.
• To facilitate, in collaboration with other training providers, the training of health care and other personnel in the provision of best quality travel health advice, based on such evidence as is available.
• To define short-term and long-term research priorities in relation to the above.

NaTHNaC provides:

Guidance and education:

• Telephone advice to travel health professionals on 0845 602 6712
  (8:30 - 11:45, 13:00 - 15:15 Mon-Fri)
• Country-specific travel health information
• Daily surveillance of outbreaks occurring around the globe
• Clinical updates detailing important global health events and advances in travel medicine
• Evidence-based information sheets on travel-related risks and disease
• Recommendations to the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation on the use of vaccines in travellers
• Training in yellow fever

Surveillance (carried out also by the Travel and Migrant Health Section of the HPA):

Surveillance of infectious and non-infectious travel-related risks

Outputs of surveillance information

Yellow Fever Vaccination Centre Administration:

A programme of registration, training, standards and audit for all Yellow Fever Vaccination Centres in England, Wales and Northern Ireland

NaTHNaC Staff

(all staff are based in London, unless otherwise indicated)

Co-Directors (from June 2012)
Dr Vanessa Field

Dr Dipti Patel

Business and Administration

Business Manager: John Mathewson

Service Manager: Geraldine Oliver

YFVC Programme Administrator: Yetunde Ibitoye

YFVC Support: Linda Pang

Data Manager: Terence Corrigan

Clinical Team

Clinical Advisor: Dr Lisa Ford (Liverpool)
Senior Specialist Nurse (Travel Health): Hilary Simons (Liverpool)

Specialist Nurse (Travel Health): Mary Gawthrop

Specialist Nurse (Travel Health): Alexandra Stillwell

 

Information

Senior Information Analyst: Daiga Jermacane