Travel Clinic for Longbenton, in and out on a lunch break

Travel jabs for Longbenton, booked around your shifts

Longbenton is a working suburb. Eleven thousand or so people, a lot of them in public-sector jobs on the big employment sites nearby, and a steady student population around the Northumbria University Coach Lane campus. Two groups, one problem. Neither of them can spend six weeks waiting for a GP practice to offer a travel appointment, and neither wants to burn a day off getting into the middle of Newcastle for one.

We are twelve minutes up the road. Newcastle Clinic is the travel service at Great Park Pharmacy and Clinic, GPhC registered premises 9010952. Pharmacist-led. No referral. Free parking outside the door.

What you get in the appointment

A pharmacist goes through the trip properly. Countries, dates, length of stay, city or rural, hotel or hostel or family home, and what you will be doing day to day. That is measured against current NaTHNaC and WHO advice for the countries on your list, because the recommendation for a fortnight in a capital city is not the recommendation for six weeks of fieldwork or a placement out in a village.

Then the health side. Conditions, medicines, allergies, pregnancy or breastfeeding, and what you have had before. Bring evidence if you have any. A red book, an old travel record, a photo on your phone from a previous trip, a university health form: any of it can take something off the list and shorten the appointment.

In stock: Hepatitis A, Hepatitis B, Typhoid, Tetanus, Rabies, Meningitis ACWY, Japanese Encephalitis, Cholera and Polio. Where malaria is a factor, we tell you and explain what antimalarial tablets involve. They are prescription-only medicines and are subject to assessment. Nothing given removes risk completely, so you also leave with the plain advice about water, food, bites and animals.

Leave enough time if you can

Six to eight weeks is the target. Some courses need a second dose after a set gap, so an early appointment is what makes finishing possible. Short notice is still worth booking. We will give what can safely be given and tell you straight what is not achievable before you fly. Current rates are on the booking page.

Fitting it around work and study

Most people booking from Longbenton are working full time or studying full time, and the appointment has to slot into a real week rather than an ideal one. So we keep it tight. One visit, an honest answer, and no invitation to come back for things that do not need a second visit. Most people are in and out inside half an hour, which makes this a lunch break rather than a day off.

The Coach Lane crowd tends to arrive with a different set of questions. Placements, volunteering, research trips, semesters abroad and visits home to family often come with a form from a university or a host organisation listing what is required. Bring the form. It is quicker to work from the actual requirement than to guess at it, and it is worth knowing which items on a list are genuinely needed for where you are going and which are not.

Families in Longbenton get planned together for the same reason. One trip over, everybody assessed, one schedule to remember, rather than three separate appointments spread across a fortnight. If a course does need a second dose, you get the date before you leave rather than a phone call about it later.

We also see a fair number of people travelling to see family rather than on holiday, sometimes at short notice and sometimes for months at a time. Long stays and repeat visits change what is worth having, so it is worth saying at the start if this is a trip you make every year rather than a one-off.

Getting to Unit 5, Middleton North from Longbenton

Three miles, about twelve minutes. Take the A19 and come round, or use Sandy Lane, which is usually the quicker of the two outside peak times. Great Park is west of the A1 and north of Gosforth, and Middleton North is signposted once you are on the development.

The address is Unit 5, Middleton North, Wagonway Drive, Newcastle upon Tyne, NE13 9BH. Free patient parking is directly outside, so there is no circling and no charge at the end of it. Longbenton Metro is on your doorstep but does not help for this one; twelve minutes by car with a space waiting is the faster version. If you are coming from Coach Lane, the run is much the same.