Founded on 20th April 1989. Travel medicine was in an exciting stage of development and many missionary societies wanted to outsource the healthcare of their staff and volunteers.
The story started when physician Veronica Moss, psychiatrist Marjory Foyle and nurse-secretary Jane Ryman started the Missionaries and Volunteers Health Service (MVHS) at the Mildmay. MVHS was the reincarnation of a Missionaries Clinic, which started more than 50 years previously. Veronica Moss, now the Chair of the InterHealth Board, became director of the Mildmay, one of the UK’s first AIDS hospices.
Meanwhile, a new doctor, Ted Lankester, was packing his bags at 2000 metres in the Indian Himalayas after working in remote mountain communities for 7 years, prior to returning to his family in the UK. Ted took over as leader of MVHS three weeks after landing at Heathrow. Ted's first job was to fully fit out his consulting room with furniture at a cost MVHS could just afford - £80!
During the early nineties a number of doctors who had worked abroad or for the NHS joined the team, often voluntarily. They helped InterHealth to become established and to survive during challenging, but exciting years!
We look back with gratitude at the contributions of Rob Morris, Frank Tovey, Ruth Fowke, Mary Eldridge, June Morgan and Margaret Blyfield who worked as relentless volunteers for many years.
Anne Yeardley joined us as our first accredited counsellor and helped to expand the scope of our Psychological Health Services team.
Our Psychological Health service focuses on;
By this time, 39 agencies used our services and we had a three established services: Medical, Psychological and Travel Clinic.
“Interhealth have been a huge support to Tearfund over the years. Not only are they great medics and give us the best possible healthcare and advice, but they really go the extra mile for us. We’ve sometimes had to call Interhealth for advice when a member of staff has been taken ill overseas, and they have gone out of their way to help us.
Interhealth take a genuine interest in our work, and show a real commitment to supporting and praying for our staff and for Tearfund as a whole”. Glenn Stead, Senior HR Advisor , Tearfund
Tearfund is a leading relief and development charity, working in partnership with Christian agencies and churches worldwide to tackle the causes and effects of poverty.
We received a phone call from The British Red Cross.
“We are looking for new medical advisors. May we come and visit you?” The BRC delegation arrived, sharing the small waiting room with some recently returned aid workers. The BRC would like to sign up but implored us to move to better premises and come to Central London!
Our premises were so crowded that a huge cardboard container with our new range of travel supplies was parked in the corridor. Ted, in enthusiastic discussion with a Red Cross anaesthetist, was walking backwards unaware of the obstacle in the corridor. A few seconds later he disappeared from sight, to the astonishment of his medical colleague! This was our final push to move as quickly as we could...
Following 12 successful years at Partnership House we outgrew the space and moved 5 minutes down the road to our current HQ:111 Westminster Bridge Road SE1 7HR.
It was called Healthy Beyond Heathrow and proved very popular. A second edition was published the following year. This later turned into Good Health Good Travel which went through two editions, to be followed by the Travellers Good Health Guide, now in its 3rd edition!
Without clean needles? Interhealth has the solution Jackie said to Ted: “I am worried about our travellers not having clean needles for use in the outback. Don’t you think we should pack up some needles and syringes in a sealed plastic bag and sell them for a fiver?"
We now provide a wide variety of medicines, specialist kits and travel equipment that can be bought online or from our clinic in Waterloo: http://shop.interhealth.org.uk/
Our new Travelshop will be launching at the end of April! Sign up for occasional updates (every 1 to 3 months) about new services and special TravelShop offers.
Paris. Three doctors, then unknown to each other were attending the Conference of the International Society of Travel Medicine. It was here that Ted met Hugh Kindness, a private General Practitioner working in the city of London, and Robert Willcox, an Occupational Health specialist. Three years later Hugh joined InterHealth and brought with him a commitment to the corporate sector.
This enriched our practice and Hugh's private clients helped to boost our funds under the name Thames Medical.
Five years later Robert joined us for one day per week, officially launching the InterHealth Occupational Health Service. Our team work closely with a variety of UK based charities and private organisations helping develop policies which maximise staff health and welfare.
“InterHealth supports us by providing professional and independent Occupational Health advice that supports our managers in dealing with absence and health related issues. I joined NIHHA in 1999 and found that there was no way of assessing fitness for roles nor addressing or supporting staff and management with issues of ill health or poor attendance. We needed something that would support our business but also understood the ethos of a not for profit organisation. InterHealth delivered both of these requirements so we came on board."
Simon Gates, HR Manager, Family Mosaic
Family Mosaic, formally known as New Islington & Hackney Housing Association (NIHHA) provide good quality, affordable homes and housing services to over 45,000 people in communities across London and Essex. They have over 20,000 homes for rent, as well as homes for people with extra support needs and temporary housing. They build over a thousand homes a year and sell shared ownership properties to people who wouldn’t otherwise be able to afford their own home.
“For many years BMS organised its own medical care. This involved a doctor coming into the office once a week to assess new candidates and review mission personnel on home assignments. We approached InterHealth, who already carried out our Psychological Assessments, for medical support.
For eight years, InterHealth has helped us in so many ways, always going the extra mile to track down obscure medical advice. They have provided an excellent service in caring for our personnel who frequently comment on the professional and caring service they have been given."
Janet Quarry, Long-Term Mission Co-ordinator
BMS sends around 350 people a year on assignments. These people are volunteers/mission workers and go as individuals or in teams. They range in age from 17 to 70 and work in five continents of the world in places as varied as Afghanistan, Congo and Ecuador. These workers do everything from medical work, church work through to engineering and development.
“The safety and wellbeing of our volunteers is paramount and we selected InterHealth because of the high standard of service they provide. As we have no in-house doctor, we required an organisation to offer advice on the general medical problems of working abroad, advice on the medical and psychological suitability of volunteers and the latest travel health advice, medicines and travel equipment." Stephen Thompson, Vision Aid Overseas
Vision Aid Overseas is a UK based charity dedicated to helping people in the developing world whose lives are blighted by poor eyesight. We send 150 volunteers abroad every year to advance optometry in the developing world.
There are 300 million people in the world whose lives are blighted by the lack of spectacles. With the quality service that InterHealth provides to Vision Aid Overseas, we have the confidence to continue to send our volunteers overseas, knowing that they have access to the best advice and support available.
Ted Lankester was one of the original trustees at People in Aid in 2003, starting up a long-term partnership with InterHealth. Over the years we have collaborated at events, shared ideas, spoken at People in Aid workshops/conferences and joint published 3 sets of guidelines on Staff Health and Welfare.People In Aid is an international network of development and humanitarian assistance agencies.
InterHealth Workshops: [email protected]
- 9th April 09 - Mitigating Sickness Absence
Case Management training for Voluntary Sector HR and
Line Managers (Co-hosted with NCVO)
- 29th April 09 - Building Resilience Under Pressure &
Managing Others in High Stress Environments
(Co-hosted with The Management Centre)
- 6th May 09 - Psychological Health, Recruitment & law
Issues for Faith Based Organisations
(Co-hosted with Anthony Collins Solicitors)
"Lattitude Global Volunteering (formerly Gap Activity Projects) became a subscriber to InterHealth’s services in February 2004. As a charity specialising in international volunteering for young people aged between 17 and 25 years old, Lattitude joined InterHealth in order to provide comprehensive health advice to its volunteers.
It is Lattitude’s aim to ensure that we do not send volunteers to placements abroad that might exacerbate pre-existing medical conditions. Any health problems which arise while overseas could not only have serious implications for the volunteer, but also for fellow volunteers and local hosts. To minimise risks, Lattitude started using InterHealth’s Volunteer Health Screening Service because it was trustworthy and impartial. More recently, Lattitude offers the Travel Health Advice Centre through the TravelWell Plan to all of its volunteers.
Not only has InterHealth screened over 3000 volunteers but it has also assisted volunteers on the ground if their health has become at risk either during or post placement." Vanessa Donnelly, Operations Manager, Lattitude.
A new self-financing project under InterHealth is launched. It’s called Community Health Global Network (CHGN) and is designed to strengthen, encourage, train and renew faith based community health programmes worldwide. This seemed an impossibly big task, but its early stages just “seemed to happen” as though God’s invisible hand was bringing it about.
The success of CHGN was marked last year when asked by the World Health Organisation to chair a 2 day consultation in Geneva on the role of NGOs in the renewing of Primary Health Care (PHC). Sixty people discussed and debated ways in which PHC can be renewed and how national ministries of health, WHO and NGOs can work together to bring this about.
This exciting and successful consultation was one of several in which WHO is helping to bring back a focus on community based health initiatives and the renewal of primary health care. It followed a first ever consultation on collaboration between WHO and Faith Based Organisations in which CHGN also participated.
"‘The Diocese of Bristol joined InterHealth because we wanted to give our colleagues the opportunity to access the excellent services that Interhealth provides. Christian ministry has a range of particular demands and those who devote themselves primarily to it need not only to look after their spiritual and mental wellbeing but also their physical and emotional health. We knew InterHealth to be a specialist in this area and were keen to take advantage of their expertise.
‘Since 2006, over 50 of our ordained staff have taken up the offer of a biennial medical with Interhealth. Around half of them have also brought their spouse and many have taken advantage of the work-life balance consultation that has been made available. Colleagues continue to go for medicals and they tell us that the thorough checks have highlighted a number of issues that needed to be addressed. For this they – and we – are most grateful."
Stuart Taylor, Docese of Bristol
"The charity started working with InterHealth in June 2007. InterHealth have supported staff at all levels of the organisation by providing advice and recommendations on managing health related issues for staff in all departments of the charity across London and the South East. Feedback from staff who have been referred for occupational health consultations is that the service is very helpful and supportive. " Fiona Andrews, Marie Curie
Marie Curie Cancer Care is the UK's leading end of life care charity, committed to providing high quality home nursing care to terminally ill people.
There are more than 2,000 Marie Curie Nurses working in villages, towns and cities throughout the UK. They provide high quality nursing care, totally free, to people with terminal cancer and other illnesses who want to be cared for at home. Often working through the night, Marie Curie Nurses make it possible for people to live their last days at home, rather than go into hospital.
Discover InterHealth...
Committed to the health and wellbeing of those making the world a better, fairer and healthier place.
Learn about InterHealth’s history and the variety of healthcare support we provide to over 250 client organisations making a difference in the UK and internationally. We support missionaries, relief and development workers, volunteers, UK charity workers and those in Christian Ministry with a variety of Medical, Psychological, Occupational and Travel Health services.
Celebrating our 20th Anniversary
We have many exciting activities planned to celebrate our 20th Anniversary including the launch of our newly rebranded website and TravelShop, an InterHealth abseil challenge to raise money for our Anniversary Fund and an evening Thanksgiving Service to celebrate the variety of work carried out by our clients. We hope you will join us in some of these celebrations.