Hands up whoever now has Cliff Richard singing in their head?! With exams nearly over, and 16 year-olds whooping with joy at the end of their school years, many people are starting to head off on their summer holidays while some are on half term, and it got me thinking about what is ahead!

There are a few distinct groups when it comes to holidays: families who can only go in July or August (to avoid paying school fines), empty nesters who relish no longer having to pay overinflated prices during the six-week school holidays, and those who can take their rest and recuperation whenever and wherever they jolly well like! Whichever camp you are in (no pun intended), we all look forward to our break, be it MyGate or Margate, Costa del back garden or cruising the world. And we especially look forward to forgetting about work for a week or two.

Summer in the land of General Practice used to be a time when you’d notice a lull; with schools out there was no panic at 3.30pm because the little darling had come home with a fever, and no one needed a GP because the sun was out and they quite simply had better things to do. Wimbledon week in the Henman/Murray era was particularly quiet, unless you were a Pimms manufacturer or strawberry picker. Then the pandemic came and put paid to all that tranquillity. Since then, every day is like a small child high on candy floss and slushies.

In the good old days, having a few people off on leave in the summer was manageable. The rotas might need a few tweaks to ensure cover from 0800 – 1830, but apart from that, all good. Now, most of us have to set limits when it comes to allowing people to take leave – only two care navigators off at a time, for example. I’ve found Holiday Manager has helped me see any potential overlaps really easily.. Because of the well-documented exponentially increased demand on GP services, along with recruitment and retention issues which are being felt throughout the UK, covering summer holidays (indeed, any holidays) has become an arduous task, adding even more stress and pressure to overstretched teams.

As managers, how do we improve things both for ourselves and our teams? Monetary incentives are tricky, as we’re all up against it financially, but sometimes the little things mean the most. Some of the things I have done over the years include:

• Publicly thanking anyone who has picked up extra hours, or a team who have worked the day short-staffed
• Getting a round of drinks from the kitchen for everyone
• Mucking in and helping out

Remember, you can only do what you can do. While we’re providing cover elsewhere, we’re always conscious of our own workload increasing.

• If you’re helping answer the phones, for example, pop on your email out-of-office message, saying you are unavailable
• Focus on (what I call) the bread and butter work – what HAS to be done vs what NEEDS to be done
• Postpone any meetings that really aren’t pressing and be ultra-strict with timings and agendas for those that are

There is no simple solution to managing leave during the summer months, and not all leave requests are for holidays in the sun. As a single parent, I used to take leave in the summer holidays because I couldn’t send my child to his grandparents every week for six weeks. Believe me, that was nooooo holiday – I’d have been glad of a wet week in Whitby (Whitby purely for alliteration purposes).

So, if you’re feeling frazzled at the thought of getting shifts covered as well as keeping everyone happy, bear these positive thoughts in mind:

• Children not at school = less traffic on the road at key times
• Iceland’s version of Magnums are far better
• You shouldn’t pee on a jellyfish sting as it makes the sting burn more, thank goodness, it’s better to use seawater!

Happy holidaying, wherever you go and whatever you do. Rain or shine, you deserve it, and in the words of Cliff, ‘…no more worries for me or you, for a week or two…’