Advice on mental health and travelling overseas

The Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) have a helpful guidance leaflet and a checklist that can help travellers with a mental health condition better prepare for their journey and get help when abroad.

To ensure those of us with mental health needs have a safe trip abroad, the Foreign and Commonwealth Office guidance leaflet and checklist has been designed to encourage travellers to do their research before they travel and ask themselves:

• Does your insurance cover your mental health condition?
• If you’re travelling in Europe, do you have an EHIC (European Health Card)?
• If you take medication, do you have enough for your trip?
• Is your medication legal and available in your destination?
• What mental health services are available in the country you’re traveling to?
• Who would help you if your mental health deteriorated abroad? And how would you contact them?
• Throughout our lives we will all experience changes to our health – physical and mental. Stress, the death of a loved one, injury, travelling and moving abroad are some of the common life events that can cause us mental distress.

This is a normal part of life. There are clear links between mental and physical health, which makes looking after yourself whilst travelling abroad important.