By Nicola Davies

I’m working on a local project at the moment with some of my colleagues on workflow optimisation and care navigation – all fitting in with the ‘sustainability/resilience of Primary Care’ plan (you know, the one that was labelled ‘Sustainability and Transformation’ but it’s probably due for a name change soon).  There’s also a General Practice Resilience Programme – I think largely to do the same as the STP, but why just have one name for one project, when two will do?!

Any which way you look at it, there’s a lot out there trying to help us all keep our practices afloat ensuring we offer our patients the right services at the right time in the right way, whilst also maintaining appropriate levels of GP availability and making sure they don’t hang up their stethoscope and walk off into the distance.

But what’s out there for us?  The chaps at the coal face, robbing Peter to pay Paul, keeping staff happy (ha!) and generally trying to balance money coming in with money going out on a daily basis (and not forgetting the ‘comic’ that is the end-of-month statement).  I did read a very helpful article about practice managers avoiding burnout – tips on dealing with stress (alcohol obviously) and generally ensuring our emotional resilience is intact (alcohol again, surely?)  The article did suggest that:

• I eat my ‘five-a-day’ (I don’t think the author meant five chocolate hobnobs though?)
• I do some regular exercise (lifting that coffee cup 10 times a day is quite strenuous but is helping my bingo wings)
• I should generally be more organised (have you SEEN my desk recently?!)
• I take up a new hobby – you know, to distract me from the stress that is my working day…(I think I could rationalise alcohol as a hobby, if I really try hard enough!)

After I had flung the article across the room in a fit of temper, I realised that I was perhaps a wee bit stressed. Eating healthily and doing exercise are not new chestnuts of advice are they? We ALL know we should eat well and exercise – it is, after all, the key to a long and successful life obviously – but I for one eat my lunch at my desk and I’m sure many of my colleagues do the same.  It’s the only way I can manage my day – by not having a break to sit in the staff room and read the latest magazine full of how the beautiful people are living. Stress-free, no doubt!

I know I drink way too much coffee, but offer me decaffeinated at your peril.

It’s a wonder I don’t have an ulcer – maybe I do and just don’t know it, and it will pop any time now… but then I’m stressed by the thought of having to have time off sick, because no-one else will be able to do the accounts, sort out the doctors’ drawings, offer counselling to that one member of staff who always seems to need a ‘quick chat’, which we all know is never quick.

Seriously though, what can we actually do to help us remain resilient, at a time when we all feel that we’re just re-arranging the deckchairs on the Titanic?

Well, I joke about alcohol – but a glass of wine with my evening meal while I’m spouting my woes to my beloved does actually help me relax – and possibly that has more to do with the conversation and ability to vent my spleen than the fact that I’m having a drink with my meal.

I talk to the dog all the time – bless her, she never answers back and often while I’m doing the morning constitutional down to the beach and back, I come up with the solution I’ve been worrying about overnight… so I’m exhausted from lack of sleep, but hey, I’ve got the answer I need.

However, I think our best stress-buster has to be that connection we have with our peers – whether it’s a local practice manager group where we get together once a month to not only discuss the relevant and important, but use it as an opportunity to have a little whinge and a moan, or our forum here, the one we look to for advice when we’re stumped.  Let’s face it, even those of us with years of experience still have our moments of doubt and just ‘spit-balling’ the problem online will always lead to someone who’s been there, done it, still wearing the t-shirt and you’ll get that valuable nugget that is your lifeline for that day.   If we don’t support each other, well… we’re doomed.

I say we raise a glass to ourselves – doesn’t matter if it’s red, white, juice or water – we’re doing a pretty amazing job under incredibly difficult circumstances and we should all take five minutes out of our day to remember that. And if you want to eat a bar of chocolate or a full packet of biscuits while you’re doing just that, then who cares?!

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