Moored on the south bank a few minutes from us, HMS Belfast is a reminder that this stretch of river has been sending people to distant and unfamiliar places for a very long time. The Pool of London was a working port, and the health of people arriving from and departing to the far side of the world was a practical, daily problem here long before it was anybody's speciality.
The old solutions were blunt: quarantine anchorages, port health inspections, ships' surgeons, and certificates of health that determined whether a vessel could dock. What's striking is how much of that framework survives — in modernised form — in what a traveller needs today. Vaccination is medicine. Certification is border policy. They are different things, and confusing them is what causes problems.
This guide covers the part of travel health that gets least attention and causes the most trouble: the records.
For the clinical side — which vaccines for which destination, malaria prevention, timing — see our fuller travel clinic guide. This article is about the paperwork.
What to bring to a travel consultation
The single biggest determinant of how useful a travel appointment is turns out to be what you walk in with.
Bring, if you have them:
- Your full itinerary — not just the country. Rural versus urban, the type of accommodation, the season, and any overland legs all change the risk assessment. A fortnight in a city hotel and a fortnight trekking in the same country are different consultations.
- Any record of previous vaccinations, however scrappy. An old yellow booklet, a printout from a previous clinic, a photo on your phone, a note in the NHS App.
- A list of your regular medicines, with doses.
- Your medical history, particularly pregnancy, immunosuppression, or a spleen that has been removed — all of which change what's safe.
Without a vaccination history, the safe course is often to assume you're unprotected and start again. That costs money and, for multi-dose courses, time you may not have.
Your vaccination record: what lasts, and what doesn't
Travel vaccines vary enormously in how long they protect for, and almost nobody remembers which is which.
Broadly:
- Some are effectively long-term or lifetime once a full course is completed.
- Some need boosting every few years — the interval differs by vaccine, and in some cases by how much ongoing risk you have.
- Some need a course of several doses spread over weeks, which is why late booking is a real constraint rather than a sales tactic.
- Some are destination-specific and only make sense for particular itineraries.
The practical implication: keep a single, durable record. A photograph of your card, stored somewhere you'll find it in three years, is worth more than a perfect memory of a conversation.
When we vaccinate you, you get a written record of everything administered — designed to be the thing you bring to your next appointment, wherever that is.
Yellow fever and the certificate that gets checked
Yellow fever is the clearest case where documentation, not immunity, determines whether you travel.
Some countries require proof of yellow fever vaccination as a condition of entry — either because the disease is present, or because you're arriving from a country where it is. Border officials do not assess your antibodies; they look at a certificate.
That certificate is the International Certificate of Vaccination or Prophylaxis (ICVP), and it has rules of its own:
- It can only be issued by a registered Yellow Fever Vaccination Centre. Not every clinic or pharmacy is one.
- It becomes valid ten days after vaccination — so a certificate obtained the day before departure will not do the job at the border.
- Under current International Health Regulations, an ICVP is generally treated as valid for life, though individual countries can and do apply their own requirements.
- It must be filled out correctly and completely. An incomplete certificate is a rejected certificate.
Qrystal Pharmacy is a registered Yellow Fever Vaccination Centre, and we issue the ICVP at the time of vaccination. Carry it with your passport — not in your luggage.
Because entry requirements change, always check the current position for your specific destination on TravelHealthPro (the National Travel Health Network and Centre) and the FCDO's foreign travel advice pages before you fly.
Travelling with your own medication
This is the other documentation trap, and it catches people who have done everything else right.
Carry medicines in their original, labelled packaging. A labelled box connects the medicine to you and to a prescriber. Loose tablets in a pill organiser do not, and are exactly what attracts questions.
Carry a copy of your prescription or a letter from your prescriber for anything essential — stating what the medicine is, the dose, and that it's prescribed for you. We can provide a written summary of what we've dispensed to you.
Pack essential medication in hand luggage, with a spare supply split across bags if you can. Checked luggage goes astray.
Check the rules before you travel — some medicines that are ordinary here are controlled or banned elsewhere. This applies to more medicines than people expect, including some strong painkillers, ADHD medication, and certain sleep and anxiety medicines. The UK government's guidance on travelling with controlled drugs covers what you need to leave the UK; the destination country's own embassy is the authority on what you can bring in. Start this weeks ahead, not the night before — some countries require a permit.
Think about timing across time zones, particularly for insulin, contraception, anticoagulants, and anything where the interval genuinely matters. Ask us and we'll work out a schedule with you.
Two different questions, two different sources
A recurring confusion is worth stating plainly.
- "What do I need to be allowed in?" is a border question. The answers come from the destination country, the FCDO, and TravelHealthPro. They change, sometimes at short notice.
- "What do I need to stay well?" is a medical question. That's the consultation — and the answer frequently includes protection that no border will ever ask you about but that matters far more to your actual health.
The second list is usually longer than the first. Plenty of travellers arrange a legally required certificate and skip the vaccine that was more likely to affect them, along with the food and water advice, the insect-bite precautions, and the antimalarials.
The NHS overview of travel vaccinations is a reasonable orientation before you come in.
Building a record that lasts
If you travel regularly, treat your travel health as a running file rather than a series of unconnected panics:
- Keep every written record we give you in one place — physical or photographed.
- Note the date of each dose, not just the vaccine. Boosters are calculated from dates.
- Keep your ICVP with your passport, permanently.
- Come back to the same clinic where you can. Continuity means we already hold your history and can tell you in minutes what you actually need.
- Book early for multi-dose courses — six to eight weeks where a full schedule is involved.
Coming home: your travel history is clinical information
The record matters on the way back too, and this is the part travellers most often skip.
If you become unwell after a trip — particularly with fever — say where you have been, and when, unprompted, to whoever assesses you. Some travel-associated illnesses appear days or weeks after return, and a fever in someone recently back from a malaria-endemic area is treated with a different urgency than the same fever in someone who hasn't left the country. The information changes the assessment, and only you can supply it.
A fever after travel to a malaria area should be treated as urgent: contact NHS 111 or your GP the same day, and mention the travel first.
A neighbourhood that travels
We're used to the range of travellers this area produces: expedition and long-haul travellers, people visiting family abroad for extended stays, business travellers with a week's notice, and hospital staff heading out on placements. The consultation adapts to which of those you are.
Where to find us
Qrystal Pharmacy, 301 Borough High Street, London SE1 1JH.
- From HMS Belfast: roughly 12 minutes' walk south-west, via Tooley Street and London Bridge.
- London Bridge (Northern & Jubilee lines, National Rail): about 8 minutes' walk.
- Borough Underground (Northern line): about 2 minutes from our door.
- Buses: frequent routes stop directly on Borough High Street.
Open Monday to Friday 9:00–18:30, Saturday 9:00–14:00.
Book your consultation
- Call: 020 7403 2237
- Visit: 301 Borough High Street, London SE1 1JH
- Book online — see our travel clinic page for what's covered
For anything urgent while you're still in the UK, NHS 111 is available 24/7; for emergencies, call 999.
The ships that once left this river carried certificates as well as cargo, for much the same reason we still issue them. Get the documentation right early, and the rest of the trip is just travelling.
