OOH patients checks and weekends

RE: OOH patients checks and weekends

Symphony — Thu, 16 Feb 2017 13:06:08 GMT

I'm not really sure why your employers aren't paying you if you are working, albeit brief in-patient checks or something more intensive. If you are caring for patients at the practice, it's work, you shouldn't be expected to do this for nothing - you're all qualified, experienced professionals!

It sounds like your practice is in between deciding whether to do their own OOH and just getting another company to do it... I think the confusion is they seem to want the best of both worlds.

Our practice does do its own OOH, which I feel benefits the patients and clients more, however, we definitely do get paid to do this.

I don't think it's fair, talk to them.

RE: OOH patients checks and weekends

Sal the 1st — Sat, 11 Feb 2017 15:03:02 GMT

just a couple of questions

1) why is your practice even bothering paying for vetsnow cover ?

2) if your vets were carrying out these ooh checks would they be quite so keen? Might be something to suggest that they share the checks when they keep a patient in? failing that call them out a few times to check on patients you are not really sure of - they will soon get the message.

check your contract. If accommodation was offered so that you would be available to check the odd inpatient then in your case the contract has changed as you no longer have the benefit of living on site.

I think vets sometimes forget their nursing staff are usually working the same number of hours in the day as they are and are just as needy of the beauty sleep.

RE: OOH patients checks and weekends

steph fursland — Sat, 11 Feb 2017 12:28:56 GMT

Don't think you are being unreasonable! That sounds pretty antisocial, and as you said in your post, not what you signed up for. I was in a similar situation in my first job over weekend cover not being counted as days worked (in my case I was too naive to properly quiz them about what exactly was expected over the weekend before I started)

By law you must have 11 hours between finishing work one day and starting the next, and at least one day off per week or two per two weeks. It's also necessary that you are paid at least minimum wage per hour worked (even if you are asleep but not allowed to leave the premises) so if you aren't getting that then it's definitely not on.

However, even within those constraints you can end up working some pretty terrible patterns, and it sounds like your practice are just seeing how much extra work they can sneak out of you for no extra money, which is not really on. Unfortunately lots of contracts are pretty vague and so your employer can say it isn't breaching your contract :-( my advice would be:

- confidentially talk to the other nurses - if you all refuse to do the new hours it makes it much harder to implement! Maybe agree with the vets that they need to send more of these patients to VetsNow (as even three hourly checks are not really a gold standard of care - you can easily fluid overload a cat in that time, for instance)

- discuss informally with the head nurse/practice manager that you are not happy working these extra hours for no extra pay/time off in lieu

- if you get nowhere, put it in writing that you are not happy and do not accept these changes to your working hours. Your employer should take notice - it is expensive and difficult to replace nurses especially if they work a rota like what you describe!

- If these steps don't lead to a satisfactory conclusion, consider looking for another job. If you are going to work crappy hours, do it as a night nurse and get well paid for it; if a sociable rota is what you are after, there are plenty of places crying out for good nurses (and you can always top up with the odd OOH locum shift if you want to get a bit of extra money). For instance, at my practice the nurses work 4 days per week, 1 in 2 sat and 1 in 6 Sundays but all of these are counted as hours worked and paid accordingly.