Sample policy · Travel clinics

Yellow fever vaccination centre and ICVP policy (travel clinics)

Statutory anchor: Regulation 12 (safe care and treatment), Health and Social Care Act 2008 (Regulated Activities) Regulations 2014 (SI 2014/2936). The primary professional framework for this policy is the NaTHNaC Yellow Fever Vaccination Centre standards, the UKHSA Green Book yellow fever chapter, and the International Health Regulations (2005) for ICVP validity. Providers must check the live source before adopting specific clinical steps, medicine lists, dose schedules, forms or reporting processes. · primary source

1. What the regulation says

Care and treatment must be provided in a safe way for service users. (Reg 12(1) (the headline duty))

assessing the risks to the health and safety of service users of receiving the care or treatment, (Reg 12(2)(a) (risk assessment))

doing all that is reasonably practicable to mitigate any such risks, (Reg 12(2)(b) (risk mitigation))

ensuring that persons providing care or treatment to service users have the qualifications, competence, skills and experience to do so safely, (Reg 12(2)(c) (staff competence))

where equipment or medicines are supplied by the service provider, ensuring that there are sufficient quantities of these to ensure the safety of service users and to meet their needs, (Reg 12(2)(f) (sufficient equipment + medicines supply))

the proper and safe management of medicines, (Reg 12(2)(g) (medicines management))

The full text of the regulation is at https://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/2014/2936/regulation/12. The professional standards for running a Yellow Fever Vaccination Centre and issuing the ICVP sit in NaTHNaC's centre requirements, the UKHSA Green Book yellow fever chapter, and the International Health Regulations (2005), named in full below. Where this policy and the regulation or the live professional guidance diverge, the live source wins.

2. Plain-English summary

Care and treatment must be provided in a safe way. The regulation lists the areas a provider must address, including risk assessment, risk mitigation, staff competence, safe premises, safe equipment, sufficient equipment and medicines, medicines safety, infection prevention and shared-care planning. Regulation 12 is central to CQC's safety expectations. For yellow fever vaccination this means the vaccine is given only by a designated, trained practitioner in a registered centre, only after a documented risk assessment that checks contraindications, and the official certificate is completed accurately and only for a vaccine actually given.

3. Purpose

Yellow fever vaccine is a live vaccine that can only be given by a centre registered to do so, and it comes with an official International Certificate of Vaccination or Prophylaxis (ICVP) that some countries require for entry. It also carries rare but serious risks, so it must not be given to a traveller for whom it is unsafe. This policy sets out how the Service runs as a registered Yellow Fever Vaccination Centre: who may give the vaccine, how the traveller is assessed, how the certificate is issued, and what happens when the vaccine is not safe to give.

The Service must verify this policy against current NaTHNaC Yellow Fever Vaccination Centre requirements and the Green Book yellow fever chapter before adoption.

4. Scope

This policy applies to:

5. Registration and who may give the vaccine

6. Assessing the traveller before yellow fever vaccine

Because yellow fever vaccine is a live vaccine with rare serious adverse events, the Service carries out a careful risk assessment before giving it and checks for contraindications and precautions, which include (the Service confirms the current list against the Green Book):

Where the vaccine is not clearly safe, the Service weighs the risk of the vaccine against the traveller's real risk of yellow fever on their trip, and does not give it simply because a certificate is wanted.

7. The certificate (ICVP)

8. When yellow fever vaccine is contraindicated

Where the vaccine is unsafe for the traveller but a destination requires proof of vaccination, the Service:

9. Adverse events

The Service is alert to the rare serious reactions to yellow fever vaccine, manages any acute reaction (see the anaphylaxis policy), advises the traveller on the symptoms to watch for and how to get urgent help, and reports serious adverse events as the guidance requires.

10. Recording

The Service records each yellow fever assessment, the decision to give or withhold the vaccine and why, the vaccine batch, the certificate issued, and any exemption letter given.

Operational controls to adapt

Roles and responsibilities

Yellow fever and ICVP procedure

  1. Confirm centre status before offering vaccination. Check YFVC registration, designated practitioner status, training currency, official stamp availability and vaccine stock.
  2. Complete the travel risk assessment. Record destinations, transit, country certificate requirements, exposure risk, trip timing and current NaTHNaC or TravelHealthPro guidance used.
  3. Check contraindications and precautions. Use the current yellow fever checklist and record immune status, age factors, pregnancy or breastfeeding, thymus history, allergy and relevant medicines.
  4. Balance disease risk and vaccine risk. Do not vaccinate just to produce a certificate. Record the clinical rationale where the risk-benefit decision is not straightforward.
  5. Give informed advice and consent. Explain serious but rare vaccine risks, expected side effects, certificate validity, bite avoidance and what symptoms need urgent help.
  6. Complete the ICVP accurately. Issue, stamp and sign the certificate only for a vaccine actually given and only in line with current NaTHNaC and International Health Regulations requirements.
  7. Manage contraindications safely. Where vaccination is unsafe, consider an exemption letter only where appropriate, explain that border acceptance is not guaranteed, and give bite-avoidance advice.
  8. Escalate and learn. Serious adverse events, certificate errors, stamp loss, training lapse, contraindication uncertainty or vaccine storage concerns are opened on the relevant register.

Records and register links

The YFVC record should include:

Certificate errors, missing contraindication checks, stamp-control failures, non-designated administration and adverse events are reviewed through governance, not handled only by individual correction.

11. Training

Designated practitioners complete the required yellow fever training and keep it current, and the Service keeps its registration and its practitioners' training in date. The Service records who is designated and the next refresher date.

12. Audit cadence

The Service checks, on a stated cadence, that:

The Registered Manager and the clinical lead review the results and record the improvement actions that follow.

13. Sources and further reading

This template is based on CQC's guidance for providers and managers, the Health and Social Care Act 2008 (Regulated Activities) Regulations 2014, and other topic-specific legislation and guidance listed below. It is a starting point for adaptation, not a substitute for legal, clinical, HR, safeguarding or specialist professional advice.

Related reading

14. When to seek further advice

Seek specialist advice where the issue involves serious harm, safeguarding, deprivation of liberty, restraint, children, professional misconduct, controlled drugs, radiation, termination of pregnancy, infection outbreak, water safety, employment dismissal, DBS barring referral, or regulatory enforcement.

15. Document control

Version Date Author Changes
v1.1 2026-07-14 Verivius (sample) Added YFVC role ownership, yellow fever procedure, ICVP records, register links and related reading.
v1 2026-06-10 Verivius (sample) Conformed to the Verivius policy standard: added statutory anchor (Reg 12), verbatim regulation quotes, plain-English summary, standard sources and document-control blocks. Original sections preserved and renumbered.

This sample policy template was issued by Verivius. It is a template, not a substitute for legal advice or the tenant's own policy-development process. Where this template and live law or regulator guidance diverge, the live source wins.

What good looks like here

Written from an ex-CQC inspector's chair, but the point is safe, well-led care your team can stand behind. Each row shows what strong evidence looks like, what thin evidence looks like, and where the expectation comes from.

Yellow fever vaccine sits in an unusual position. It is a live vaccine given to well people who are about to travel, so the rare serious reactions to it fall on someone who had no illness to treat. That inverts the usual risk balance, because the person in the room often wants the certificate rather than the protection, and the trip is already booked and paid for. The contraindication check, the disease-risk assessment for the actual itinerary and the recorded rationale are the only things that later show a dose was given for the traveller's benefit rather than for the paperwork. The certificate then leaves the clinic and is presented at a border months or years afterwards, so an inaccurate or unlogged International Certificate of Vaccination or Prophylaxis (ICVP) can strand someone abroad long after everyone involved has forgotten the appointment. Where the vaccine is declined on safety grounds the traveller still carries the disease risk, so the bite-avoidance conversation is the real clinical care and not an afterthought to the exemption letter.

  1. Yellow fever vaccine is given only by a practitioner designated and trained within a currently-registered centre, not by whoever is free; what counts is designation and training currency, not clinical seniority.

    Strong evidence: Yellow Fever Vaccination Centre (YFVC) record fields: registration status, practitioner designation and training date; audit cadence line that registration is current and the vaccine is given only by designated, trained practitioners.

    Weak evidence: A designation list with names but no training dates, or a training date that lapsed months ago while the rota still books that practitioner onto yellow fever appointments. Centre registration nobody can evidence as current, and dose records that name the clinic rather than the individual who gave the vaccine, so on a busy day nobody can say afterwards which practitioner actually gave a traveller their dose.

    The recognised standard from a professional or clinical body, such as NICE or a royal college. Not a legal duty, but the accepted mark of safe practice, and a departure needs a documented reason.

  2. A documented risk assessment with contraindications and precautions checked precedes every dose (immune status, age extremes, pregnancy or breastfeeding, thymus history, egg or other component allergy), not a check the clinician does only when it occurs to them.

    Strong evidence: Section 6 contraindication list and the record fields contraindication and precaution checklist, risk-benefit rationale, consent and advice given; audit cadence line that a documented risk assessment with the contraindications checked precedes every dose.

    Weak evidence: A consultation record with a ticked box reading no contraindications and nothing showing what was actually asked. Immune status captured only as a repeat-prescription list nobody has read, age and pregnancy status inferred from the demographics rather than asked, and no field anywhere for thymus disorder or thymectomy, so that answer is absent from every record rather than recorded as negative in every record.

    The recognised standard from a professional or clinical body, such as NICE or a royal college. Not a legal duty, but the accepted mark of safe practice, and a departure needs a documented reason.

  3. Where the risk-benefit is not straightforward the clinician weighs disease risk against vaccine risk and records that reasoning, and the vaccine is not given simply because a certificate is wanted.

    Strong evidence: Section 6 (weighs the vaccine risk against the traveller's real risk of yellow fever and does not give it simply because a certificate is wanted) and procedure step 4, recorded as the risk-benefit rationale.

    Weak evidence: The risk-benefit rationale left blank on every record except the one that later went wrong. Identical copied wording such as risks and benefits discussed running across dozens of files, or a dose given for a short airport transit where the notes show the destination's certificate requirement but no assessment of the traveller's real exposure on that itinerary.

    The recognised standard from a professional or clinical body, such as NICE or a royal college. Not a legal duty, but the accepted mark of safe practice, and a departure needs a documented reason.

  4. The International Certificate of Vaccination or Prophylaxis (ICVP) is completed, stamped and signed only for a vaccine actually given and in line with current requirements, not issued as a stand-alone document; every certificate issued is recorded, so a traveller whose certificate is lost or challenged at a border can have it reconstructed from the clinic's own records.

    Strong evidence: Section 7 and procedure step 6, with the record fields ICVP details, serial or stock control reference where used, stamp use and certificate validity advice; audit cadence line that certificates are issued accurately, recorded and only for vaccines actually given.

    Weak evidence: Certificates signed and stamped with the batch number blank or the validity dates wrong, and no log of what was issued, so a challenged or lost certificate cannot be reconstructed from the clinic's own records. Replacements written up from what the traveller remembers, or blank certificates stamped in advance of clinic to save time.

    The recognised standard from a professional or clinical body, such as NICE or a royal college. Not a legal duty, but the accepted mark of safe practice, and a departure needs a documented reason.

  5. The official stamp is kept secure with a custody trail and used only by the centre; stamp loss is escalated on a register rather than managed informally, so anything that may have been certified with a missing stamp is reviewed.

    Strong evidence: Section 5 (the official stamp is controlled, kept secure and used only by the centre), the record field stamp custody, procedure step 8 which escalates stamp loss, and the audit cadence line that the controlled stamp is secure.

    Weak evidence: A policy line saying the stamp is kept secure with nothing behind it: the stamp sits in an unlocked drawer, any clinician can reach it, and no one can say who held it on a given day. Stamp loss handled by quietly ordering a replacement, with nothing opened on a register, so nobody reviews what may have been certified with the missing stamp. Keeping the stamp secure comes from the centre standards; the named custody trail and the register entry are the Verivius default mechanic here, not a statutory requirement.

    Our recommended baseline. Not a legal or regulatory requirement, but a sensible standard we suggest where the rules leave the detail to you. Adapt it to your service.

  6. Where the vaccine is unsafe the traveller is told honestly that an exemption letter may not be accepted at the border and is given bite-avoidance advice, because the exemption removes the certificate, not the disease risk.

    Strong evidence: Section 8 and procedure step 7, with the record fields exemption letter rationale, wording source and advice that border acceptance is not guaranteed.

    Weak evidence: An exemption letter on file with a template paragraph and no record of what the traveller was actually told about acceptance at the border. Consultation notes that stop at the letter, with no bite-avoidance or other protection advice recorded, so the file reads as though the risk ended when the letter was printed.

    The recognised standard from a professional or clinical body, such as NICE or a royal college. Not a legal duty, but the accepted mark of safe practice, and a departure needs a documented reason.

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Last verified 20 July 2026

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Last reviewed 10 June 2026