“It’s our professional responsibility to us, our families and even more importantly our patients to have the vaccination. So supporting the flu campaign is really just an extension of that”.

Jan has worked hard with her colleagues to boost the numbers from 1 immuniser per area (and in some cases - none) to a minimum of three per area.

“It wasn’t hard as all the matrons work really closely together.  I rallied them round and asked if they could help recruit volunteers to support the peer vaccination programme. It was great to see colleagues clearly felt it was as important as I did.

“In fact just this week I’ve had another sister come to me to see if she can get involved”.

It’s a far cry from when Jan first became an immuniser. “I was once the only person to cover the whole of the trauma and orthopaedic floor, and that was only a few years ago.”

“It really hit me how important having the vaccination was when I worked in critical care around seven years ago. There was a pandemic and we had a large number of really sick young people who fell into acute renal failure quickly and we lost quite a few patients.

“That was tough, especially as many had no previous medical history. That’s partly why I have my vaccination every year”.

Our flu campaign kicks-off in early October - and this year our immunisers are going to be more recognisable as they have their own flu fighter armbands and some will have t-shirts too.

Watch this space for more comms....