On call/Night duties

RE: On call/Night duties

UlaGreyWolf — Tue, 04 May 2021 17:32:06 GMT

At our first opinion practice our OOH is covered by VetsNow, at the Referral centre the on call nurse is on call from the minute her shift ends at 18:30, then she does an evening check at around 9PM and takes any inpatients out to the garden, and makes sure they're okay. Then she goes to bed on site but can still be called if an emergency comes in. Then she gets up around 5-6AM for the morning check, takes all the inpatients out to the garden again. Then she either hangs around until her shift starts, or goes home, has breakfast and comes back in for her shift.

I think ask what the nurses want for sure. Nice bit of extra money, but can be a pain in the arse.

RE: On call/Night duties

Chippet — Wed, 21 Apr 2021 04:17:17 GMT

The vets currently have a crap deal IMO, always have. Work full day (10 hours), on call and half day next morning (usually til 1pm). On call is busy.

Currently VNs are not called in for much, the vets manage on without help, which is silly/nice of them, but not sustainable. We have tried encouraging them to call the VNs out more for help, but no avail.

The vets biggest concern (aside for lack of sleep) is something happens to one if the patients early hours and they not been checked recently.

I just don't think we have the work load for a wake shift, but a sleep shift would present the same problem.

This last week theres been the maximum of 3 inpatients (admittedly all on drips), but not needing much in the way of medication giving, so what does the nurse do otherwise. Could answer phones, but they are also mostly quieter between 3-5am. However a few weeks ago, there were 6-7 inpatients! So difficult.

RE: On call/Night duties

Chippet — Wed, 21 Apr 2021 04:10:55 GMT

Not yet, I want ideas how other practices work before our meeting next week.

RE: On call/Night duties

apache — Tue, 20 Apr 2021 23:05:48 GMT

So many unanswered questions:

What do the vets do?

How often are you called in?

What are you called in for?

To have dedicated night staff then there must be a lot of chargeable work to justify it and I'd expect nurses to be working most of the night, most of the time. I feel the pattern should be similar for the vets and nurses - it's not really fair the nurse leaving at 8.30 to go to bed after the 6am GDV, for the vet to step into consults. I've heard of vets calling in nurses for the stupidest of things - to run a blood sample etc!

We don't have on call nurses as the vets will deal with 90% of things themselves. It would really be an OOH GA where we'd message around for a 2nd pair of hands. Doesn't happen often enough to put nurses on a formal rota. Always able to find someone to help. Looked at a bitch this evening to check she had no pups left in her - has a couple of offers of help in the space of 2 mins. She was empty so all ok. I appreciate that if you cover OOH for 30FTE vets then you will be busy and should have separate staff

RE: On call/Night duties

Sal the 1st — Tue, 20 Apr 2021 22:18:14 GMT

have you asked the current staff?