on call vs night shift

Re: on call vs night shift

jamie — Fri, 27 Jan 2012 13:34:07 GMT

Thankyou everybody. I held a practice meeting about a month ago and we tried to get him to define our hours and pay etc. He told us if we asked for any pay we would be digging into the wage of a new nurse which would take our weekend rota to 1 in 5. I did feel for him bless him being grilled by 3 nurses but he would make a fantastic politician as he didn't answer any of our questions :) I will print off these suggestions for him and try for another meeting with all ur points.

Re: on call vs night shift

Tracy Windler RVN — Fri, 27 Jan 2012 12:59:48 GMT

Hi, we're in a similar situation, as we are a relatively new practice and rarely get critical cases. But when we do, they often come in batches! We have a nurse on call, who the vet will contact if she needs to. If we are on call, we get paid 2 hours, then if we get called out, we get paid an hourly rate and charge it to the client. If it is a case which needs regular monitoring, the nurse and vet take it in turns to come back and do checks (we get paid from the time we leave home to the time we get back). If the patient needs constant monitoring, we take it in shifts. If the nurse is paid to be on a night shift and gets to go home next morning, I think its reasonable to leave them there covering the whole night, otherwise, I don't think its right to leave it all to the nurse. But you're goig about it the right way, he just seems to be sticking his head in the sand!

Re: on call vs night shift

Jill Macdonald — Fri, 27 Jan 2012 12:56:38 GMT

I'm not 100% on the employment legislation, but I am sure there is a limit to the amount of consecutive hours work that you can do. Working a full day, then all night, and then into the next day, I am sure, would break these regulations!

In my opinion, you need to push for a discussion on this topic with your boss, and come to a distinct arrangement about how this work is covered, and paid for. It is completely unreasonable to expect someone to work either on call, or monitoring a patient at night, (or even just doing a few hours extra work), for no pay and no time in lieu.

Also, it is very stressful for you to not know when it may be that you will need to perform this extra work. We all appreciate (and in fact it is part of the job that we love) that sometimes we have to put in extra for the good of our patients, but for you to have to cover nights (with no accomidation) and for this to happen regularly (and 3 times since Dec is that) is unfair I think....

Re: on call vs night shift

Fuzzyduck — Fri, 27 Jan 2012 11:28:40 GMT

My old practice we used to do 1 night a week 'on call' but we would get £25 on a weekday and £40 for a weekend just for being on call then if we actually had to do any work in that time we would get overtime paid at time and a half and then time off in leiu. So if you had to work for say 4 hours during the night you'd not only be paid but you'd be able to leave 4 hours early the next day.

I dont think you should have to do on call for no money and just out of the goodness of your heart, if your working antisocial hours there should be a decent compensation.

Re: on call vs night shift

Sal the 1st — Fri, 27 Jan 2012 10:43:15 GMT

just a suggestion - might not work but I dont know all the ins and outs of your practice. When you know there is going to be an inpatient in would it be possible to say have 1 nurse working through till 10pm and the other taking over at 10pm so you share the load a bit? The nurse that does all night have them finish at 10am or after the morning consults have finished( I am guessing you have 3 nurses).