I’m sure many know the feeling, and many have been there. You return to work after an enjoyable week off exploring, catching up with family or friends, relaxing, or getting up to date with the DIY around the house, but it’s not long before it all becomes a distant memory. You’re trying to get up to speed on what you have missed and everyone wants a piece of you when you’re back in the office. You have barely trawled through the 1500 e-mails that were sent whilst you were away, which only added to the few hundred unread e-mails that were already sitting in your inbox before you finally drew the line and turned on your ‘out of office.’ You can no longer taste the rum from your Piña colada on your lips, or you regret complaining about taking the week off to paint that skirting board. You start thinking about booking your next day off if it isn’t in the diary already, but planning your next annual leave after one day…already…?

Following an afternoon of meetings and a 7 pm finish, when you were adamant you were going to be gone by 5 pm, you are happy to have completed the first day back. But also a little anxious because when you were off, you swore to yourself that when you got back to work you wouldn’t be staying as late as you did before, or that you would no longer be checking your e-mails at home in the evening. Well, old habits die hard.

But there were positives to your first day back. Perhaps that patient you spoke to over the phone to keep them updated on the progress of their operation date was grateful for your call; or the patient you saw looking lost in the corridor was less anxious because you escorted them to where they needed to be; one of your clinical team were delighted to catch you at your desk for 5 minutes to sign a form, or your Support Manager was pleased to have you back to answer a few queries after a week of deputising in your absence.

Cast yourself back to before your week off. You were probably working more hours than normal to get up to date so that you had little outstanding or little to handover. You showed up to just ‘tidy things up’ on the extra day off you had booked, or you logged in to finish some work at home. Deep down you knew you were ready for some time out.

Work related stress is said to account for 30% of sickness within the NHS, costing the NHS £300 – £400 Million and that in the most recent NHS Annual Survey, 38% of staff reported that they had suffered from work related stress (NHS Employers, 2019). So, regardless of whether you have just returned from one day, one week or two weeks annual leave, plan your next time off and don’t leave it too long, because we can’t do the best for our patients, and our staff, if we aren’t operating at our optimum.

Book that family holiday, arrange to spend time with your parents, take a day off to read and catch up with yourself (or sleep if you need to!), because the patient you spoke to on the phone, the patient you escorted to their destination, that Clinician you made happy with a simple signature, and the team members who value your input, will all thank you for it in the long-run.