On Call Pay

Re: On Call Pay

Joy Mant — Sat, 19 Jan 2013 20:28:07 GMT

I also looked into this 'being on call on site' business a couple of years ago when asked to do it on top of my 40 hour a week day job. If you have to remain 'on site' (regardless of if you are awake or asleep.) as opposed to going home (unless you get an onsite accomodation - this is totally different as your technically at home) these hours should be included in your weekly working hours i.e. mine would have gone up to 53/week including my 13hour on-call duty. Which is a breach of working time regulations (48hours/week average) - unless you sign an opt out letter - which you can not be made to do but can also cancel at any time.

See direct.gov.co.uk for advice on working time regulations or BVNA helped me loads

When I pointed this out to my practice I was told they had spoken to a lawyer and they understood it broke regulations but 'other practices do it so we will too' - I now work for a much more reasonable practice!

I now get time off in leiu and a premium added to my hourly rate when working 'night hours' even though I can sleep if its quiet.

Re: On Call Pay

Helen Freer — Sun, 18 Jan 2009 10:42:29 GMT

I agree with STRVN.

As a boarding cattery owner if I want to go out in an evening after the cats have been feed and shut in, I have to pay a person at least the min. wage, to stay on my premises. So I see no difference if a VN is required to stay in the practice over night that they equally should be paid for the hours they are on site or you are restricted what you can do.

Re: On Call Pay

Shane — Sun, 18 Jan 2009 09:58:57 GMT

The group that I'm currently working for for another 2 weeks has the following policy at their hospital wrt after hours:

Weekdays: Start at 10am in the morning, work till 7pm, then everyone leaves. You get paid till 10pm. Everything that comes in from 10pm till 7am, you get £15 per case that comes in. You don't get paid for 10pm till 7am. you then work till 12pm and go home!

Weekends: Saturdays you start at 9am and work till 1pm sunday afternoon!

Sundays: You start at 12:30 and work till monday 12pm! In each case you dont get paid from 10pm till 7am.

Long hours....

Re: On Call Pay

Sandra Taylor RVN, MBVNA — Sat, 17 Jan 2009 00:17:11 GMT

Can I also say I was salaried at this job, and this extra money was above and beyond my salary.

Re: On Call Pay

Sandra Taylor RVN, MBVNA — Sat, 17 Jan 2009 00:14:50 GMT

By law you are entitled to be paid at least the minimum wage hourly, especially if you are in the building for that time. Dont let any vet tell you otherwise, as that is in employment law, student or not, and it is above and beyond your salalry...... unless you are on a huge wage, which I doubt anyone on here is.

I looked into this years ago when I worked at a practice who paid us a paltry amount for being "on call" but we were in the building ind 7/10 we were up all bloody night, so I spoke to an employment lawyer, and you are entitled to at least the min wage for being "on call", he(laywer) said if you are beholden to someone and cant to what the hell you like then you are entitled to be recompensed for the time you give up, and as there is such a thing as min wage in this country we were entitled to that.

My hours were 1.30pm-10pm, then 10pm on call, but in the building till 9am the following day.... so my day began basicall at 1.30pm and did not finish till 9pm the following day, and after 10pm we were paid a nominal fee of 18 quid!!!!!!! so I looked into it, and we ended up getting paid min wage hourly from 10pm till 9am when on call, instead of 18 quid.

Re: On Call Pay

Noodle — Fri, 16 Jan 2009 22:58:25 GMT

[quote user="Noodle"]

At one practice I have worked at, we did full night shifts 4 nights, about once every 6-8 weeks- ie awake, up and working all night, and got paid time and a half, plus a day in leiu.

At another practice, we did nights sleeping in upstairs - worked till 11pm, then bed and start again at 7am setting up for the day staff. If there were critical inpatients we had to get up. This was salaried, and I think it was about once a week if memory serves.

I have also worked at a place where accommodation above the practice was free - no rent, council tax or tv license (paid all other bills) - BUT you had to get up to check inpatients if necc, and were top of the list to cover at short notice if night staff called in sick

[/quote]

Meant to say also, that the vets took the phones at that practice, and in fairness they were actually really good about it, and often did emergency consults at daft o clock without waking the nurse. Also the day after your night shift, you got to go home at 12pm, but didn't get any time off in leiu - so even if you'd had a crap night with a GDV etc and had no sleep, you still had to work till 12pm, and be in the day after, bright and early at 8am

Re: On Call Pay

Noodle — Fri, 16 Jan 2009 22:53:20 GMT

At one practice I have worked at, we did full night shifts 4 nights, about once every 6-8 weeks- ie awake, up and working all night, and got paid time and a half, plus a day in leiu.

Re: On Call Pay

dinkyd — Thu, 15 Jan 2009 12:38:41 GMT

Hi we do a one in 9 full wkend and we start at 12pm fri and work through til 12.30pm monday and then 8-12pm on tuesday and then we have the rest of the week off - wage is incorporated into our salary and we £2.50 per hospitalised inpatient but we are also taxed on this!

We also do a one in 8 week of nights which is four nites on call starting at 6pm - 8.30am mon - thurs this can either be a waking shift or sleeping very much depends what we have in.we have to stay on premises as we are now teir 3, we do not take the phones the vet takes it home with them - but they still think they have a hard shift - but i wont even start on that lol!

Re: On Call Pay

loobylou — Thu, 15 Jan 2009 11:01:59 GMT

We do a 'sleeping' on call and are salaried. We are allowed to go home and no phones.

Weeknights we work 2pm-10pm then on call until 8am and available for inpatient checks if needed. We work 1 week in 5 and do monday to friday. Weekends we work 9am-5pm then on call overnight (for emergencies and inpatient checks) and work both sat and sund. Again its 1 weekend out of 5. We get 2 days back on full pay for a weekend. For callouts, any overtime before 11pm is paid at our usual hourly rate, anything after 11pm is paid at £16 an hour. If we get less than 11 hours undisturbed time between shifts we take time back the following day. Our actual on call allowance is worked into our salary but used to be around £800.

Re: On Call Pay

Rachel Jayne — Thu, 15 Jan 2009 03:37:13 GMT

think it was £11... I could be mistaken, maybe it was £10, anyhoo!

Re: On Call Pay

Rachel Jayne — Thu, 15 Jan 2009 03:36:16 GMT

I'm salaried & appraently the money for being on call is encorporated into that...
(However the SVN's are hourly paid & they say they don't get paid any extra... )
I could be on call 2 nights in a row weekdays & do 1:3 whole weekends including Fri night on call.

I get paid a set bog-standard £30 for the inconvenience of being actually called out.

(At my last place I didn't get paid for actually being on-call, but got paid a minimum of £20 for getting called out, with £11 an hour thereafter)

Re: On Call Pay

Vicky RVN — Wed, 14 Jan 2009 21:20:11 GMT

We do weekends 8am-6pm as part of our salaried rota but we get a couple of days of the following week to compensate for this. For the night duties we get paid £60, which is working from 6pm-8am. We don't get time off for doing nights, but we are able to choose hat nights we do so it's very flexible, and we can choose how many we want to do.

Re: On Call Pay

nicky shoult — Wed, 14 Jan 2009 21:16:39 GMT

it is a good deal- but they run and ooh practice that covers about 30 other local practices- so a quiet night is usually unheard of! We also get paid a bonus if we take over a certain amount- but this is only paid IF all the bills are paid! and then its only a small % but it all helps!

Re: On Call Pay

Caro Laithwaite VN — Wed, 14 Jan 2009 20:38:25 GMT

Nicky that sounds like a hell of a deal, usually it is a few pounds provided the bill is paid before a set date.

Re: On Call Pay

Ami Fawcett — Wed, 14 Jan 2009 20:21:36 GMT

Re: On Call Pay

Ami Fawcett — Tue, 13 Jan 2009 21:31:54 GMT

great thanks for your help

ami

Re: On Call Pay

nicky shoult — Tue, 13 Jan 2009 21:27:11 GMT

They can be either - if its busy or you have critical patients then its all night but if its quiet and patients not critical then its too bed for few hours with the baby monitor!

Phone are answered by the nurses all night and its up to us to deal with any inpatients.

Nicky

Re: On Call Pay

Ami Fawcett — Tue, 13 Jan 2009 21:21:08 GMT

Nicky, are these 'proper' night shifts ie. up all night, or are they 'sleep overs' ie being in the building, taking calls, doing a couple of checks on the animals throughout the night?

Thanks

Ami

Re: On Call Pay

nicky shoult — Tue, 13 Jan 2009 21:15:12 GMT

Well when im working at the out of hours clinic my hours and pay are the following:

Sat 12-6pm £60 Sat 6-8am £130

Sun 8-6pm £110 Sun 6-8am £110

Weekdays are £90 for 6-8am

Bank holidays are usually double time, with day off in lieu.

If i work a night and then meant to be working the next day then we automatically get that day off (with full pay).

When we are on back up call- the hours and pay would be as above with a day of in lieu, but for just having our name on a rota we got £1,000 per year pay rise!

Hope this helps.

Nicky