The Harrow Health Care Centre

Private Vaccination Clinic In Harrow North West London

Please note that as the cost of investigations and immunisations may be subject to change without notice, please check the prices with our receptionists when booking your appointment.

About Vaccinations

The Harrow Health Care Centre provides a fast, convenient and uncompromised vaccination and immunisation clinic to both private and corporate clients.

With same-day and next-day appointments available, our doctors are ready to see you now.

Children’s Vaccinations

The Harrow Health Care Centre provides a fast, convenient and uncompromised vaccination and immunisation clinic for babies and children. With same-day and next-day appointments available, our doctors are here to keep your children fit and healthy.

We provide a full range of children’s routine vaccinations. Our expertise also extends to the recommended immunisations schedule for babies born outside the UK, and, in particular, the United States. We know how important it is that children travelling around the globe follow the immunisation schedule of their nationality.

We offer a complete range of vaccinations for babies and children including:

  • Six-in-one – diphtheria, tetanus, whooping cough, polio, Hib and hepatitis B
  • Four-in-one pre-school booster – diphtheria, tetanus, whooping cough and polio
  • Three-in-one teenage booster – tetanus, diphtheria and polio
  • Pneumococcal or ‘pneumo’ (PCV)
  • Rotavirus
  • Meningitis B
  • Hib/Men C vaccine
  • MMR – measles, mumps and rubella
  • Flu
  • Human Papilloma Virus (HPV) – for both girls and boys
  • MenACWY – meningitis
  • Chickenpox
  • BCG – tuberculosis
  • Hepatitis B
  • Hepatitis A

Chicken Pox

The Harrow Health Care Centre provides a fast and convenient chickenpox vaccination clinic for children and adults. With same-day and next-day appointments available, our doctors are here to keep you and your family fit and healthy.

Chickenpox is an illness which, in this country, is most common among children (although it can be caught at any age). It is caused by the varicella virus.

Once you’ve had chickenpox, the virus lies dormant in your body and can sometimes flare up again in later life as shingles – a condition which is not only very painful but can also cause serious complications, such as loss of sight and meningitis.

The Harrow Health Care Centre offers chickenpox vaccinations. We offer convenient appointments at a time and date to suit you.

The chickenpox vaccine offers effective protection for anyone who has not previously had chickenpox.

Many countries, including the USA, routinely provide vaccinations for infants and the World Health Organisation includes the varicella vaccine on its list of ‘essential medicines’.

However, in this country, children are not offered the chickenpox vaccine on the NHS. The lengthy period of incubation (21 days) – and the need to stay home for a week if you catch the disease – makes chickenpox a virus that families would rather avoid.

Flu Vaccinations

The Harrow Health Care Centre provides a fast and convenient flu vaccination clinic for children and adults. With same-day and next-day appointments available, our doctors are here to keep you and your family fit and healthy.

If you have ever suffered from flu, you will know it can be a very unpleasant experience. For vulnerable groups, however, such as children, older people, pregnant women and their unborn babies, and people with an underlying health condition, it can cause severe illness and even death.

We stock the latest seasonal vaccines to help protect against all major strains of flu. We also provide businesses with a flu vaccination programme – helping to protect your workforce against the spread of flu. Simply book a convenient appointment at a time and date that suits you.

In 2022 we are offering several different flu vaccines, which are priced as follows:

Flucelvax: A four-strain Cell-based vaccine recommended for most adults – £30 now £20

Adjuvanted Quadrivalent vaccine: A four strain injection for those over 65 – £30 now £20

Quadrivalent vaccine: A four-strain injection for children from 6 months of age for whom the nasal vaccine is not suitable – £30 now £20

If you are unsure which vaccine is suitable for you and your family, please speak to us.

  • Your body’s immune response declines over time, so an annual flu jab is needed for optimal protection.
  • Flu viruses are changing all the time so the formulation of the vaccine has to be reviewed and updated each year to keep pace with changing flu strains.

HPV Vaccinations

The Harrow Health Care Centre provides a fast and convenient HPV vaccination clinic for both males and females. With same-day and next-day appointments available, our doctors are here to keep you fit and healthy.

Human papilloma virus (HPV) is a group of viruses which cause almost every case of cervical cancer. HPV also causes 50 per cent of ano-genital cancers in both men and women, head and neck cancers and genital warts.

Vaccination protects against 90 per cent of the viruses that cause cervical and ano-genital cancers and most types that cause genital warts.
The NHS has offered vaccinations for girls since 2008. However, many girls missed out because they fell just outside the age group being targeted by the programme. The NHS has only recently announced plans to offer vaccines to boys and it is not certain how quickly this will roll out across the UK.
Although best administered to youngsters before they become sexually active, it is still beneficial for any woman or man up to the age of 45. If you were not offered the HPV vaccine as an adolescent, speak to us about vaccination.
Boys are already routinely vaccinated in some countries, including Australia and USA. It is important because it protects them against genital warts, ano-genital cancers and head and neck cancers. It also prevents the spread of the virus to their partners. We now strongly recommend that boys are offered this vaccine.

BCG Tuberculosis (TB) Vaccine

The Harrow Health Care Centre provides a fast and convenient HPV vaccination clinic for both males and females. With same-day and next-day appointments available, our doctors are here to keep you fit and healthy.

The BCG vaccine (which stands for Bacillus Calmette-Guérin vaccine) protects against TB. It’s not given as part of the routine NHS childhood vaccination schedule except in high risk areas when a baby is thought to have an increased risk of coming into contact with TB.

This includes all babies born in some areas of inner-city London (and including Brent and Harrow) where TB rates are higher than in the rest of the country.

BCG vaccination may also be recommended for older children who have an increased risk of developing TB, such as:

  • children who have recently arrived from countries with high levels of TB
  • children who have come into close contact with somebody infected with respiratory TB

BCG vaccination is rarely given to anyone over the age of 16 – and never over the age of 35, because it doesn’t work very well in adults. It is, however, given to adults aged between 16 and 35 who are at risk of TB through their work, such as some healthcare workers.

The BCG vaccine is made from a weakened form of a bacterium closely related to human TB. Because the bacterium is weak, the vaccine does not cause any disease but it still triggers the immune system to protect against the disease, giving good immunity to people who receive it.

The vaccine is 70-80% effective against the most severe forms of TB, such as TB meningitis in children. It is less effective in preventing respiratory disease, which is the more common form in adults.

Read about the side effects of the BCG vaccine.

BCG vaccination is recommended for babies and adults at risk of catching tuberculosis (TB).

The BCG vaccination is recommended for all babies up to one year old who: are born in areas where the rates of TB are high have one or more parents or grandparents who were born in countries with a high incidence of TB are likely to travel abroad.

  • The BCG vaccination is recommended for all older children and adults at risk of TB including:
  • older children with an increased risk of TB who were not vaccinated against TB when they were babies
  • anyone under 16 who has come from an area where TB is widespread
  • anyone under 16 who has been in close contact with someone who has pulmonary TB (TB infection of the lung)
  • anyone studying healthcare or related subjects
  • BCG vaccination is recommended for people under the age of 35 who are at risk of TB through their jobs including:

    • healthcare workers
    • laboratory staff who are in contact with blood, urine and tissue samples
    • veterinary staff and other animal workers, such as abattoir workers, who work with animals, such as cattle or monkeys, that are susceptible to TB
    • prison staff who work directly with prisoners
    • staff of care homes for the elderly
    • staff of hostels for homeless people
    • staff who work in facilities for refugees and asylum seekers
    • healthcare workers with an increased risk of exposure to TB
  • The BCG vaccine is also recommended for people under 16 years of age who are going to live and work with local people for more than three months in an area with high rates of TB.

    • Parts of the world that have high rates of TB include:
    • Africa – particularly sub-Saharan Africa (all the African countries south of the Sahara desert) and west Africa, including Nigeria and South Africa. Southeast Asia – including India, Pakistan, Indonesia and Bangladesh
    • Russia
    • China
    • South America
    • the western Pacific region (to the west of the Pacific Ocean) – including Vietnam and Cambodia

Before you have the BCG vaccination, you should be tested to see if you’ve been exposed to TB before. A test, called the tuberculin skin test, or Mantoux test, should be carried out before BCG vaccination if someone is:

  • six years or over
  • a baby or child under six with a history of residence or a prolonged stay (more than three months) in a country with an annual TB incidence of 40 per 100,000 or more
  • those who have had close contact with a person with known TB
  • those who have a family history of TB within the last five years

The Mantoux test assesses your sensitivity to a substance called tuberculin purified protein derivative (PPD) when it’s injected into your skin.

If your skin is sensitive to PPD tuberculin a hard red bump will develop at the site of the injection, usually within 48 to 72 hours of having the test.

If you develop this reaction (a positive test result) it shows that your immune system recognises TB because of previous exposure and you should not be vaccinated as you already have some immunity to TB. In this case, the BCG vaccine would have no clinical benefit and may cause unpleasant side effects.

If the test is negative, you can go ahead and have the BCG vaccine.

If you have a strongly positive Mantoux result, you should be referred to a TB specialist team for further assessment.

The BCG vaccine is not recommended for:

  • people who have already had a BCG vaccination
  • people with a past history of TB
  • people with a positive tuberculin skin test (Mantoux)
  • people who have had a previous anaphylactic reaction (severe allergic reaction) to any of the substances used in the vaccine
  • newborn babies in a household where a case of TB is suspected or confirmed
  • people who have a septic skin condition at the site where the injection will be given
  • people who have received another live vaccine less than three weeks earlier
  • people with a weakened immune system, either as a result of a health condition such as HIV, treatments such as chemotherapy or medicines that suppress the immune system such as steroid tablets
  • people who have cancer of the white blood cells, bone marrow or lymph nodes, such as leukaemia or lymphoma
  • people who are seriously unwell (vaccination should be delayed until they recover)
  • pregnant women

BCG vaccinations are not usually offered to people over the age of 16 because the vaccine doesn’t work well in those over 16 and there’s virtually no evidence showing that it is effective in those aged over 35.

However, some people over 16 and under 35 whose work puts them at occupational risk of TB may still be offered the vaccine.

Some parents have found making the decision to protect their child against TB quite difficult. They are puzzled as to why the NHS offers BCG immunisation in some areas and not in others. The unit in Denmark which manufactured BCG vaccine stopped producing the vaccine which had supplied most of Europe two years ago, so many babies who would normally have received their BCG vaccination on the National Health Service did not get protected. Supplies to the private sector were also suspended until very recently.

There is no longer any shortage of vaccine supply, and in the private sector we are now able to access the same vaccine that has been chosen by Public Health England (for the NHS).

We are all agreed that to get maximum benefit from a vaccination to protect our most vulnerable individuals that vaccinations should be done as soon after birth as possible and ideally within the first year of life. This is because the BCG vaccine is very effective in protecting against TB meningitis which mainly affects babies. There are lots of different infections caused by tuberculosis and vaccination cannot protect against every sort of TB infection, but it is much better to have your child vaccinated than not to.

People who are particularly at risk of tuberculosis are those who travel to countries where standards of general health may be poorer such as Africa, India, and Pakistan. TB is also more common in areas where we have a lot of visitors from those areas. It is current UK policy to offer tuberculosis vaccination to those babies who were born in those areas where there is a lot of tuberculosis but not to offer it in areas where there is lower incidence. That is why if you are born in Brent or Harrow you would qualify for a BCG on the NHS but if you are slightly outside in Hillingdon or Northwood you won’t automatically be offered a BCG immunisation. It is a bit of a postcode lottery but of course you don’t just drive from Pinner to Northwood and find that the level of TB changes so dramatically.

Most of the parents wishing to immunise their babies do so because they recognise that their children will be mixing with other children from lots of different areas when they go to nurseries, play groups and schools. Many of our families enjoy travelling to Asia and Africa and many have family members and friends who visit from those areas. There are also some occupations which require you to have a BCG injection, certainly if you want to study medicine or any of the allied health professions you will be required to have had a BCG immunisation. We will continue to provide BCG immunisations for those children who live outside the areas designated as high risk by the NHS and of course also to any children who find it difficult to access BCG on catch up.

Frequently asked question

Our clinic offers any vaccination available as recommended by specialists, including immunisations for babies and children, travel vaccinations, large-scale occupational health schemes, regular flu jabs and lots more.

Yes! To view our full range of children’s vaccinations and to get more information, please contact us.

Yes, Harrow Health Care Centre is one of the major private providers of chicken pox vaccinations in the region. Please contact us for more information.

Yes, our experienced doctors and nurses offer year-round flu vaccinations to people of all ages. For more information about annual flu vaccinations please contact our team.

Although best administered to youngsters before they become sexually active, it is still beneficial for any woman or man up to the age of 45. If you were not offered the HPV vaccine as an adolescent, please click here for more information and to book an appointment.
Our clinic runs on a same day or next day basis, so book now and let us know when and where you are going, so we can cover you appropriately in time for your trip.

In 2022 we are offering several different flu vaccines, which are priced as follows:

Flucelvax: A four-strain Cell-based vaccine recommended for most adults – £30 now £20

Adjuvanted Quadrivalent vaccine: A four-strain  vaccine for Adults over 65 – £30 now £20

Quadrivalent vaccine: A four-strain injection for children from 6 months of age for whom the nasal vaccine is not suitable – £30.00 now £20

If you are unsure which vaccine is suitable for you and your family, please speak to us.

Other services we provide