It’s a busy time of year for community pharmacy as the flu vaccination service is well underway to protect those at risk of health issues from getting the virus.

But one pharmacist’s own experience of catching the flu has prompted her to speak out on the importance of not delaying getting your flu jab.

“It’s not about me being ill and looking for sympathy, it’s more about raising awareness for people, patients, and healthcare professionals not to forget themselves,” says Dr Tania Cork, who is chief operating officer for the Community Pharmacy Staffordshire & Stoke-on-Trent local pharmaceutical committee (LPC).

Read more: Which pharmacy is offering the cheapest flu jabs for autumn 2024?

Community Pharmacy England shares on their website that pharmacy team members are not an eligible group to get the flu jab through their position. 

But they may be able to get a jab through any occupational health arrangements in place if they don’t fall into one of the eligible patient groups that can access the jabs, of which the costs fall onto your employer.

Cork is urging pharmacists and healthcare professionals to get their jab as soon as possible as she told C+D “I was a very healthy person, no other conditions, and it knocked me completely off my feet”.

“It shocked me of how much longer it took and how ill I was.”

She believes not enough self-care is done by people to stay safe, and this “happens a lot in all healthcare professionals, not just pharmacists”.

“We were so busy looking after patients and busy in our day-to-day job that we put things off.”

Cork herself put off her own jab last year, even though in her role at the LPC she has access to flu data to “know if we're going to get an influx of patients”.

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“I’ve got access to the dashboard, which a lot of pharmacists and other healthcare professionals do, so I can see what flu is hitting and how many COVID numbers we’ve got. 

“I just thought, I'll keep an eye on it, and when it starts going up, I'll have my flu vaccine. It did start going up, but then I got busy.”

Cork went to Barcelona for a long weekend in December 2023 and “never gave it a thought that actually there might be flu there”, but she believes she caught the flu from using the metro.

Read more: Third of public still ‘unaware’ of Pharmacy First service

On the day she left her trip, Cork felt ill and tired which is “not like me” but continued “soldering on” for days afterwards even when she still had no energy, was coughing, and her chest was “getting tighter and tighter”.

“I felt like I could hardly breathe, it was really painful. I was freezing cold, running a fever,” she adds.

After her husband rang 111, he took her to A&E and the hospital put Cork on the “drips, painkillers, antibiotics, nebuliser” until a few hours later when they told Cork she had the flu.

“They took me straight to isolation for a couple of days until I got a little bit better and be able to breathe without the nebuliser,” Cork remembers. “I didn’t feel right until April 2024”.

Wear a mask

In the four months she was ill, Cork was on a course of antibiotics as she had a recurring chest infection and was regularly fatigued, even using an inhaler for the first time during her recovery.

“I wouldn't say I was totally ill all the time, I might have had four or five days I thought I'm alright, and then all of a sudden my chest would be tight again.”

She also had aching muscles which were unfamiliar for Cork as she’s an avid gym-goer, and stresses catching the flu isn’t always a short-term illness.

Read more: Pharmacy technicians added to NHS flu jab PGD in professional first

“This is the thing, people think if I catch the flu, I'll just be ill for a couple of weeks or whatever, but it can affect you really badly.

“Do not delay if you’re eligible for your vaccine, and if healthcare professionals are, get it soon as possible.

“This year I’ve been first in the queue for the vaccine as soon as it was launched. If I go in crowded areas, I wear a mask now.”

Read more: How pharmacy teams can differentiate between cold, flu and COVID-19

Cork believes greater effort can be done to “make sure patients understand you can have the vaccine done at the pharmacy or at the GP”.

“They're exactly the same vaccine, exactly the same process and exactly the same pay for whoever does the vaccine, and the money goes back into the business, whether you're a GP business or a pharmacist business.”