Night Nurse Rota

Re: Night Nurse Rota

annaschu — Thu, 06 Oct 2011 22:00:51 GMT

I work 8pm - 8am looking after first opinion and referral cases and have the large OOH provider in the building for emergencies. I have the joy of just nursing, no clients, no staff politics! Some nights can be quiet but these more than make up for the busy ones when you can be so exhausted at hand over that it's tempting to just curl up in a kennel until the next shift. It's a 7 on, 7 off no sleep position but I find this helps a great deal with the swap over at the end of a week of shifts - I worked briefly for said OOH provider and found the randomness of shift pattern along with sleeping for periods here and there unhealthy and very tiring. This works much much better and it's good to have conitnuiy of cases through out the week and see the progressions patients make

Re: Night Nurse Rota

Tracy Windler RVN — Wed, 05 Oct 2011 13:42:08 GMT

Sheffield is a tad too far for me (Ieven did a check on google maps) but I am not put off by OOH work, I quite enjoy it. I also often dawdle at work, pottering around when I'm not supposed to be there. Something about being at work when you're not officially on duty!

Re: Night Nurse Rota

Juliet Drummond DAVN (med) RVN D32/33 — Tue, 04 Oct 2011 23:34:13 GMT

bump

anyone??

Re: Night Nurse Rota

Juliet Drummond DAVN (med) RVN D32/33 — Mon, 03 Oct 2011 13:19:52 GMT

Anyone interested in working nights in sheffield??

also would you be put off applying for a vn post if you had to do some ooh??

any help appreciated

Re: Night Nurse Rota

Caro Laithwaite VN — Fri, 30 Sep 2011 08:47:14 GMT

I am opposite to sal have done 4 x 4 and 7 x 7 and preferr 7 x 7 l find better to relax in that time 4 x 4 you just geting over it and wham back at work. shifts done 13-23 17:30-03:30 and 22:00-08 and 19:00-08:00 and few other varietys but in 11 years of nights it builds up. I dont like mixed shifts but as a locum l have to do them. I do them find the body copes better on only one. Done a few sleeping shifts disliked them it felt wrong to be sleeping on duty

Re: Night Nurse Rota

Sal the 1st — Thu, 29 Sep 2011 23:21:58 GMT

I have worked the 3 on 4 off 4 on 3 off before and found it very workable, 7 on and 7 off was just too much for me I hated it, it made me feel ill after about 6months. The shorter rota also made it easier to organise holidays (the were two of us sharing the shifts and we didnt use locum cover for holidays, we just covered each others nights off). Ours were full shifts 8 -8 you were not expected to sleep

Re: Night Nurse Rota

Juliet Drummond DAVN (med) RVN D32/33 — Thu, 29 Sep 2011 23:10:01 GMT

hi guys,

i need some feedback from you if possible.

i work in a small vet hospital, we do our own ooh, but the vets take the phone.

our nurses currently do a range of shifts in the week with at least one on call night

shifts are

8am - 4pm ops nurse

9am to 5pm ops 2 nurse (if enough staff)

12.30pm to 8.30pm late nurse

1.30pm to 9pm on call nurse (works shift then stays on site overnight, paid 1.5x hourly rate if called out or nursing inmates),

the above nurse then does 7am to 3pm the next day

we vary so much regarding how busy we are, i'm currently on-call and have no inpatients, we usually have 2 to 5 in overnight on average.

the problem we have is that we are recruiting for an RVN and have not had one single response. i think it is down to the ooh?

my current RVN's want to do days only, we are considering all the options, except using an ooh provider (do not feel this is best patient client care)

but we want to look after the staff we have.

so what i'am asking is -

do you prefer to do one or the other regarding days and nights and not mix them?

i would like to employ dedicated night staff, but i don't know how it would work , or if we are busy enough? is there anyone out there looking for nights only?? we are considering a rota with 2 night nurses,

those of you who do nights, do you prefer a block e.g 7 on 7 off, or a short rota e.g 3 on 4 off, then 4 on 3 off?

any opinions and experiences would be great.

Re: Night Nurse Rota

Caro Laithwaite VN — Wed, 28 Sep 2011 14:40:52 GMT

Waaaahhh don't go insulting me PLEASE honestly Tracy it is well known l am weird but normal *off to huff and kick teddy* mummble normal mutter grumble normal !!!! wtf can not believe anyone thought l was normal

Re: Night Nurse Rota

Tracy Windler RVN — Wed, 28 Sep 2011 13:30:28 GMT

And no one could ever accuse you of being "normal", Caro!

Re: Night Nurse Rota

Caro Laithwaite VN — Wed, 21 Sep 2011 07:48:44 GMT

Not found worse just found a lot colder but that could be cause l am nocturnal based so normal people may well find it more emotional at 4am

Re: Night Nurse Rota

emmadilemma — Tue, 20 Sep 2011 16:34:01 GMT

Ha i`ve been known to shed a tear during a nightshift too....things often seem worse than they are at 4 o`clock in the morning!

Re: Night Nurse Rota

Tracy Windler RVN — Tue, 20 Sep 2011 14:12:56 GMT

Hee hee! Hi Ellie! I quite like night shifts too! Did 3 month stint as night nurse at Dick Whites and loved it. (except one night that was really busy and almost every IP pulled their iv's out. I actually sat in a kennel and cried!)

Re: Night Nurse Rota

Ellie Chandler — Tue, 20 Sep 2011 09:20:16 GMT

Hi , i love night shifts! - i may be in the minority ! Our practice does (weekdays) 2pm start until 12am with 1 hr break usually split in two. Bed at 12am until 6am (unless called out) then work until 10am with the rest of the day off to compensate. The hours worked are incorporated in to the amount on our contract - 37 1/2 in most cases. A weekend night is 7pm until 12am, bed until 6am (unles called out) then work until 7.30.am Nurses on at the weekend daytime dont work the weekend night shift as a rule. We do have a lot of nurses - which is why this works for us.

Re: Night Nurse Rota

Sal the 1st — Mon, 19 Sep 2011 20:04:11 GMT

[quote user="maylane"]

I would have liked to send you something useful but our hours are 4pm to 7am for nights (nights are one in 7) . We do days either 8-5, 9-6 or 10-7 and one in 10 weekends we do a horiffic WTD breaking 7am sat to 1pm on monday, on our own, up all night if needed, only paid for 8 hours a day.

Obviously i wouldnt recommend it!

[/quote]

not being horrible but you always have the choice not to work there if the conditions are so horrific. I am not saying what is happening is 'right' but ultimately we all have the choice to either accept conditions or move on.

Re: Night Nurse Rota

Nick Shackleton — Sun, 18 Sep 2011 21:34:42 GMT

depends how many nurses you have at your disposal

where I work at weekends we have:

3/4 nurses: 7am-4pm

2: 8am-5pm

1 nurse: 1pm-11pm

1 or 2 nurses: 4-10pm

1 nurse: 5.30pm-3am

1 nurse: 10pm-8am

We also have vets on site round the clock.

This rota is used during the week with added nurses on the daytime rota.

it also depends on the workload is like. Where I work is one of the busiest emergency hospitals. Covers around 30 odd vets in the local area.

Re: Night Nurse Rota

SmegSlayer — Sun, 18 Sep 2011 19:13:01 GMT

I did nights as part of my rota from march 2004 till sept 2006 and I hated it. It made me really ill and depressed and I put on over 2 stone. It was one night every 2 weeks normally (unpaid due to being an SVN) Mon-Thurs nights were 5pm til 9:30am, Fri night was 6pm till 11am followed by Sunday day 8am-6pm (just you and a vet). Weekends were Sat 6pm-8am and Sun 6pm-930am done together.

Day shifts were 8am-4:30pm and 11:30am till 8:30pm.

So if I was doing Wednesday night I would work full days on Mon, Tues and Friday with Wednesday night inbetween. We could sleep if not many inpatients or treatments but not before midnight. Night nurse would be the only one in the practice and would also answer all the calls and call the vet when needed.

Re: Night Nurse Rota

maylane — Sun, 18 Sep 2011 13:51:09 GMT

Obviously i wouldnt recommend it!

Re: Night Nurse Rota

Lisa Whitehouse — Sun, 14 Aug 2011 18:14:00 GMT

our nights nurses work 6.30apm-8.30pm sat, 6.30am-7.30pm sunday 9-7.30 mon-friday with the option of sleep if possible upto 6 hours. 1week nights 3 week of days.

hope this helps

Re: Night Nurse Rota

Susan Jackson — Sat, 13 Aug 2011 23:58:21 GMT

I do emergency clinic which I get called out in the night. Can be really difficult if working next day.

Wouldn't it be easier to do eight hour shifts, these 12hr plus sound really hard to me. Someone doing 8 till 4am then someone coming in for 4am to 12pm and 12pm to 8pm. I used to work in a factory and I lved working really early and going home hours before anyone else. I went to bed early but never missed evenings. It was only 5 days so still got 2 days each week.

I also did 12hrs, four days on four days off but by the fourth day it's tough going.

I never knew it takes years off you. Thinking that I feel older than I really am, maybe it's working at the clinic. Might have to re-think that one. Money's not worth everything.

Re: Night Nurse Rota

emmadilemma — Sat, 13 Aug 2011 16:23:12 GMT

Should have said....a second fulltime nurse works the same rota as me but on opposite weeks and there`s two parttime nurses who each do a weekend of nights and a weekend of days per month. As far as an out of hours rota goes that`s all the basic hours covered

Re: Night Nurse Rota

emmadilemma — Sat, 13 Aug 2011 15:53:53 GMT

I`ve been working fulltime nights for about a year now and agree that doing it longterm is deffo a bad idea healthwise. I was becoming very bored with daytime practice and really enjoy the work so it`s a shame there`s such a downside to it

My nightshifts are 7pm till 08.30am with the possibility of a 3-4 hour sleep break.....obviously that`s dependent on how busy we are!!

My rota is roughly...week one - mon,tue,wed,thur nights / week two- mon,tue wed,thur nights then sat and sun dayshifts / week three - fri,sat,sun nights / week four - off

Hope that helps!

Re: Night Nurse Rota

Vicky RVN — Sat, 13 Aug 2011 15:40:52 GMT

When I first started at my old practice...night shift 6pm-8am. On top of working days. Could sleep, took phones and looked after inpatients. Not recommended, working full time days as well as nights is not great!

Re: Night Nurse Rota

Stuart McQueen RVN MBVNA — Sat, 13 Aug 2011 15:37:08 GMT

Thanks Caro, can't believe that there aren't more nurses on here with night staff!?

Re: Night Nurse Rota

Caro Laithwaite VN — Fri, 12 Aug 2011 22:12:01 GMT

No Mark not wrong very dangerous. Recommended time 2years of nights at 11 years l am on a dangerous slope but l prefer nights. The worst is the swapping of nights but full time is actually almost as dangerous. Log onto any website and it is a walking encyclopaedia of problems. If you are already depressed from wirking nights... don't log into any websites.

Stuart will message you in next couple of days am to tired to at the moment.

Re: Night Nurse Rota

Mark Walsh — Fri, 12 Aug 2011 22:00:08 GMT

I thinK EU working time regulations state that you can't do longer than 12 hours but I think it may depend on whether the night nurse is allowed to sleep. Even if you are allowed to sleep you're never really off duty so are really still working. Lone workers should have access to a panic alarm and don't do what I once did on a night shift and lock yourself out, staff should have a key or something to wear round their necks to prevent this as it is not just me who has made that mistake.

I read that working night shifts is bad for your health unless your just doing night shifts and not day shifts mixed in as well, can take years off your life apparently. Hope this is wrong.