[user104658]

Originally Posted by Kizzy

Ts is making a really valid point I totally agree, if you have any illness or virus that requires rest to fight off you should be off work and resting, it's common sense.
Boris spent so many years trying to get into no 10 he's understandably reluctant to hand over the reins, looks like now he doesn't have a choice. I wouldn't wish this on anyone and obvously hope he recovers asap.

I actually do feel for the guy ( ) because in a position of authority like that it's not even as simple as checking out - even if he did totally hand over to someone else, can a PM really sleep soundly and not be in a state of extreme stress? In fact not being kept totally up-to-date might even make the stress worse. It's a bit of a Catch-22.

My wife was talking about a similar thing a few days ago, how things are different for Mental Health staff in wards vs in community MH/addictions. In the wards when you clock off, you hand over your patients to the next person on shift. In the community your patients are your patients... you can still take annual leave, you can still be off sick if you're sick, but you still feel responsible for those people and think about how they're getting on in your absense, worry about them if they seemed in a bad way when you last saw them, etc. She's quite worried about this at the moment actually - phone contact only, and much less contact than normal even with that. For obvious reasons, but she still feels a duty of care for those people and it isn't quite being met under the exceptional circumstances.

I imagine you could scale that up country-wide for a PM. Even if he takes time off, he'll still overall feel responsible. Then again... neither are the sort of job I'd take on, for that reason. I know I need to be able to clock out from work outside of work hours and not worry about what's happening. People know the responsibilities they're taking on... but it still must not be the easiest thing in the world.

/ ramble.