Cherish your yesterdays, dream your tomorrows, and live your todays

Jane returned home from our holiday in Portugal with Covid. We are not sure where she contracted the virus, but within 24 hours of landing she felt very unwell. One Covid test later and there it was – two red lines as bright as anything. As I write this blog, she is much better, and we are reassuringly down to just one red line. I didn’t test* positive at all – and I do wonder if that is a consequence of all the age-related Covid vaccinations I had been given. In fact, and here’s tempting fate, I’ve never had Covid at all.

Jane’s experience prompted me to look at where the Covid19 Inquiry had got to in its evidence gathering. Over the past five weeks, the Covid19 Inquiry has been hearing testimony from all those involved in the adult care sector. This has included residents of care homes, their families, and of course the former Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, Matt Hancock. He has given evidence to the inquiry on more than one occasion. At the beginning of July this year, he was once more in front of the inquiry panel; this time to discuss, in detail, decisions he took around protecting the residents and staff living and working in care homes.

He was given a tough ride. Not for the first time, he was accused of employing empty political rhetoric in describing the attempts that the Government of the time made to cast a protective ring around care homes, as the pandemic became more widespread. In his defence, Matt Hancock said that the decision to discharge patients from hospital to care homes when testing was not available, was ‘the least worse solution’.

At times such as the pandemic, where there was great uncertainty, anxiety, complexity and of course lots of unknowns, there can often be no prior experience to draw upon. In such situations, it can be almost impossible to take a decision that delivers the best outcome. As in this case, the ‘best’ that one can hope for is the ‘least bad’ outcome. Hopefully, the outcomes from the Covid19 inquiry will help better prepare us for any future pandemic-like phenomenon.  

However, some decisions can be easier to take. I took the decision to retire, but not retire. Taking the decision to retire was an easy decision; what to do in my retirement proved more difficult. I have been fortunate to able to continue contributing to the NHS, and in particular to mental health services. My role as Chair of a large mental health NHS Trust is a real privilege and provides me with a great deal of pleasure and satisfaction. I don’t work every day, but every week brings me opportunities to help and support others, to discover new knowledge and experiences, and to enjoy the social benefits of working as part of a team. It seems I’m not alone in enjoying life in this way.

Researchers from the University of Haifa, in Israel, recently published a research paper in the wonderfully entitled Journal of Happiness Studies, that concluded that true life satisfaction past the age of 67 comes from not retiring at all. Slight qualification, this outcome applies to men and not so much to women. The research found that the men, who enjoyed this stage of their life most, were the ones who continued to work. Working full time, past the official retirement age, appeared to give the most satisfaction and greater emotional wellbeing. But working part time also provided for great life satisfaction and an enhanced sense of wellbeing, compared to those men who stopped working altogether.  

Many governments around the world are actively considering raising the official age of retirement. In the main this is due to the impact of demographics and the economic need to have a viable workforce contributing to taxation-based national services. Services such as health, defence and welfare for example. In the UK, 70 is being mooted as a possible new national retirement age by 2040.

Extending the work lifespan looks as if it might become a reality and/or a necessity. Perhaps freeing up people’s time when they are younger, and likely to have more energy, could mean people can enjoy ‘retirement like’ periods earlier in life. The Covid19 pandemic showed just how unpredictable life can be. None of us knows what life might bring tomorrow, or how healthy we might remain. It was Mahatma Gandhi who said ‘Live as if you were to die tomorrow. Learn as if you were to live forever’. Wise words.    

*You can buy single test kits from B&M, Amazon and other retailers, all for about £1.99 a kit.