We must become more aware of importance of good health, says Sheffield business leader

It has affected who can come to our houses, how we travel, how we undertake work and business and our freedoms to associate with loved ones etc.

The enormity of that cannot be underestimated as it became embedded behaviour.

As we enter the period up to Christmas, our minds normally turn to the stress of buying presents, what invitations to accept or decline and, not least, to stock up with the mountains of extra food we purchase, forgetting how quickly the shops will reopen.

So much so that we are usually exhausted and contemplate a return to work with a mixed of relief and dread.

This year, it will be different, particularly trying to understand what we can and cannot do to comply with our particular tier of restrictions that apply before and after the five-day period when they will be relaxed to aid a degree of normality during the festive period.

We will then turn our minds to what of the new year?

For some it will be how do I find a job and what support can I expect finding one.

Ffor others it will be how do I rebuild my business, particularly those hardest hit in the preceding nine months or so, or worse still how do I rebuild my life after the loss of loved ones, most missed over Christmas?

The new year will give hope that the much-publicised roll out of vaccines will allow us more freedom to return to much-needed normality, reinforced by more hopefully comprehensive and responsive test-and-trace facilities.

Workplaces will never be the same again, as working from home becomes a more attractive proposition.

This in turn will necessitate how we revitalise our town centres, to make them more attractive and accessible.

Schools will have found new ways of keeping pupils safe and educating them, where availability of remote devices now more essential than ever before, but no substitute for face to face teaching and children associating with each other.

Above all, we will have become even more aware of the importance of our health to everything we aspire to and how we have to accept our responsibilities to become fitter.

The health prevention agenda have to be much more responsive to the inevitable mental health issues that has affected all levels of society during the pandemic.

Last and not least, the realisation that investment in our health is an essential ingredient not only of our personal wellbeing but a sustainable economy also.