Working 12hr shifts 3 days on, 3 days off - advice needed please

[tirednhser]

I work in the NHS and do 12 hour shifts, 3 days on followed by 3 days off then 3 more days on. I thought having 3 days off would be great after working Mon-Fri 9-5 before this job but I'm actually finding this shift pattern very hard to adjust to. I do night shifts and day shifts, alternating between the two every month.

My job is very active and you can't just pop out for some water or the loo so I often leave work tired and dehydrated. As the months go by I find I don't do much on my days off. I feel like as soon as I've recovered from my work days and feel ready to do something with my time off I'm back at work. I feel like I spend my work days in a complete daze. There is no time in the evening to relax with a glass of wine, go for a walk or watch some TV, it's home, dinner and then straight to bed. Texts go unanswered, missed calls not returned; I feel like I'm in a complete work bubble for those three days.

Colleagues say they feel the same. I feel like I need to build better habits into my day to make this easier as I think it's not a bad shift pattern at all, I'm just struggling in knowing how to plan my time better.

Does anyone have any advice?

OP that sounds just awful. I think your first day off you are just knackered and then having to shift from days to nights.
This shift pattern makes it easier to fill roster but is absolutely unsustainable and damaging to your health and destroys any life outside work.
If you are all struggling can you approach management? Otherwise I would be looking for another job!
This kind of roster is also dangerous for patients!

It’s miserable. I think hospital work is harder than police shifts as you’re stuck inside all shift with artificial lights and hospitals are boiling hot. The old system of earlies and lates was no better as you’d often get 10 on with constant late-early-late-early and sometimes only 2 off before another run. Then 7 nights, it was awful. Ward work is a young persons game, it ruins your health and social life.

God I remember these days. My old rota used to have 4 night shifts in a row regularly, and then sometimes I would finish nights at 7.30am and be back in the next day at 7am on a 12 hour day shift .

I left that job and now work 10 day hour shifts, so 4 days per week.

If I went back on a ward with 12 hour shifts now, I would cut my hours down to 23 and do a couple of extra shifts per month as overtime/on the bank to top up my salary. Or at least cut my hours down to 34.5 hours per week to avoid the weeks with 4 long shifts. But even that I would find hard to cope with, too old for that game now (in my 30s!).

How do you find night shifts? A few of my friends prefer them (weirdos!) and work permanent nights. Personally I hated them. Especially in the summer, it's so hard to sleep in the day when it's hot and every fucker is out mowing the lawn .

Shopping list for night shifts:

• Blackout blinds
• eyemask
• ear plugs
• sunrise simulation alarm clock (or a lamp with a plug timer on it, much cheaper).

Do you plan your week in advance? This is essential for surviving long shifts in my experience. Meal plan and batch cook, set aside a couple of hours to do laundry and house work (weirdly I used to like to do this after a long day shift ), and try to make plans to see people and relax on days off. I used to try to treat work days as purely work days, so would batch prepare uniforms and lunch etc, then would have a very early night, work, eat, sleep x 3, but it was more bearable when I had something nice to look forward to afterwards.

Can you also make shift requests? We could make 4 a month, so I would always request the first and last 3/4 days of every other month off, so I would have at least 6 days off in a row every 8 weeks to look forward to. Have you got regular annual leave booked?

I went part time after I had my daughter 7 years ago. I only worked 2 long days a week, but found it increasingly more difficult. I recently changed to 3,7.5 hour shifts a week, amd although its more travelling for me, its so much easier. Although more exhausting for other reasons such as staff shortages and an increasing workload. If I could afford it I'd go and work in Aldi.

NHS also, I just turned 30 and in the last year (covid probably hasn’t helped) my physical and mental health has taken a huge hit, I am undergoing a diagnosis of arthritis in one of my knees, I’ve just had a week off and could cry at the thought of going back. The shift pattern is killing me I can do days and nights in the same week, I spoke to my manager and she said ‘you’re young you can do it’ I feel old. I take a 1L bottle of water with me every shift put it on the desk, when I leave I’ve barely drank half of it. I have no advice but I am actively seeking another role. I’ve also gained 20kg since stating this job 7 years ago I think due to disordered eating and poor sleeping.

I've cut to the end, having read 2/3 of the replies.

It is my opinion that NHS shift workers have been sold a pup.

I raised the 12/13/14 (!) hour shift thing on here a few years ago and was hacked down. Apparently, staff love, love, love them. All that lovely family time off (tho soz if you work 3/4 weekends, eh?).

Childcare? Easy. Mum'll do it. Sense of team spirit when you can actually go 8 weeks without seeing some of your fellow workers? Um.... Giving your final patient at the end of day 3 the same attention you gave your first, on day one?.... 🤔 Wanting to cutback once you hit 45? These are the hours, love.

Another issue that is far more contentious: it's very hard to organise such workers into protest around an issue as you're never in the same place together.

Employers love the ease of rota'ing 12 hour shifts. Day is night, night is day. They're just 'shifts', aren't they? Huh? Jeremy (C)Hunt thought so, but so many (young) staff also bought into it.

Our team were on their knees at the end of three night shifts. So they split them into 2 then 1. So the pain is now spread over 5 days.

It is not a thing to build a life around.

@Onandoff

It’s miserable. I think hospital work is harder than police shifts as you’re stuck inside all shift with artificial lights and hospitals are boiling hot. The old system of earlies and lates was no better as you’d often get 10 on with constant late-early-late-early and sometimes only 2 off before another run. Then 7 nights, it was awful. Ward work is a young persons game, it ruins your health and social life.

Well. I am about to be even more contentious: where I work, these crazy shifts have become an overseas trained workers' thing.

Some of my fellow workers work 3 night shifts, straight; then take on a 12 hour overtime day shift, then do 3 days agency elsewhere. Repeat.

10 years ago you might be questioned about your fitness to work after such crazy hours (the Datix and sickness patterns are laid bare but ignored) to now, the rest of us are considered a bit soft for only being willing to do 38 hours a week over three long shifts.

Where's our commitment?

I recognise this isn't directly what the OP is about. But five 9-5 shifts a week prevented that craziness.

I work in an NHS lab (which we also have to staff 24/7). We switched from voluntary on-call, which was busy but doable, to mandatory night shifts about 5 years ago, mostly as a cost cutting exercise (the pay was better for on call)

The nights are truly horrendous. A lot of people are doing their training here and then leaving for the private labs (where they largely seem to have on call) not long after they have to start doing them. I'm in my 50s and one of the few people my age who can still do them as they've caused so many health problems in the others.

It doesn't help that we're severely understaffed during the days too, so a lot of day work gets pushed onto the nights. Everyone I know who does them is thinking of leaving, and since Covid it's become even work as we do the testing for that as well (although to be fair people have stayed a bit longer to cover that period).

The issue for me here would not be the long days but the alternating days and nights - I work in Care doing 3 x 12hr days per week which I find easier and less tiring than the old split shifts. I have turned down far better paid jobs in the NHS and other private care jobs due to compulsory night shifts - I think working nights is extremely detrimental to mental and physical health - we are not meant to do it - I have seem colleagues’ health plummet when working nights and some of the most extreme cases of dementia I have seen are in people who worked nights for years.

Don’t do it OP x

Weren't the 12 hour shifts something to do with the EU working hours directive ? So theoretically it was to give us more rest time between consecutive shifts.
I really couldn't work 3 in a row although plenty of my colleagues do. Most however are in their mid 20s early 30s and seem to have more energy ! During the height of the pandemic some were working crazy numbers of hours because our trust were offering double overtime, I really don't know how they did it.
I think it's just a gradual erosion of rights, we lost our paid breaks and now have to work extra hours to make it up, they introduced an electronic rota which only allows a limited amount of requests, then the relentless 2 weeks days/2 weeks nights

I managed to keep it up for two years doing 3 1/2 days a week. Then dropped to two days a week. But even doing two bouncing back and forth nights and days was a killer.
I now do days only and two per week. I still need the day after two in a row to recover, I'm pretty useless that day, so can't plan anything.
If I do two on, one off, one on that takes up 5 days with exhaustion.

In your situation I would reduce your hours. Then pick up a couple of extra bank shifts per month to make the money up. And look for something else. There’s usually loads of jobs for nhs on the internal website.
Also speak to your manager and tell them you’re not coping with the shift pattern.

NHS here too, i used to do 2 x 12 hour shifts together, have 3 days off then do 2 more 12 hour shifts. It was horrendous. 2 long days in a row almost killed me, I don't know how you do 3!
I'm old now (50+) and I do 3 x 8 hour shifts a week, so much better! And I do bank shifts if I feel I can cope with extra.
I have arthritic knees which doesnt help!
Do you have requests you can use for days off? I used them for extending days off.

ITU nurse here. Yes it's the continuous swapping from days to nights that I find the worst. Doing 3 nights then only having 24 hours off and back to days is a killer.

I coped better when younger. Now I'm 50 I just can't do it, it's ruinous to health. So for the last 4 years I have just done bank nursing and chosen to do days only and pick my shifts. Really made a huge difference to my health.

I am just about to swap specialities and go into the cardiac catheter lab full time because that's only days with the odd on call at night, maybe 2 a month which I can cope with. Never want to do endless nights again.

My advice - work on getting yourself somewhere where you don't have to do these shift patterns when you move into your 30's and beyond.

I used to do 7 on 7 off night shifts. I’m convinced this is a major factor to my being diagnosed with type 2 diabetes at age 42. I wasn’t overweight or had a family history etc. Nights are just a killer shift!

I feel for you OP, it’s a killer and one of the reasons I did my sonographer training and left working clinically as a midwife. I’m now mon-Fri 8.15-4.45 and it’s soooooo much better. I occasionally miss having a day off during the week but then I remind myself that I was often asleep on that ‘day off’.

@Miljea

Hit the nail on the head.

There seems to be a weird culture on some wards of "sleep is for the weak", if you can't work 4 long nights in a row or switch between day and night shifts 6 - 8 times seamlessly every single month, then that's your issue, not the rotas.

When I worked on a ward, I cut my hours down to 30 per week, and I was basically told I was being lazy by some colleagues, the ones who literally dragged themselves in for extra shifts and were inpatient/rude/sometimes just nasty to patients. My reason for cutting my hours down were so that I could rest and have a life, so I didn't burn out like they already had and could actually be good, or at least okay, at my job.

When I finally left my ward, they were very short staffed and put out a job advert which included offering a bump up your pay scale (within band 5), a retention bonus, and various "stress, resilience and sleep workshops". How about you just don't put staff on a constant switch over of days and nights in the first place?

Though it's not just the wards: I once had an interview for a dialysis unit and was shocked when I was told the shifts were 14 hours! 6am - 8pm, or 8am - 10pm. Erm, excuse me?! No thanks.

So yeah, summary of rant is that long shifts are shit, and when people say "but you only work 3 days a week!" they haven't got a clue how draining it can be.

I used to do this too & kept it up for 4 years. Constant swapping from days to nights & like you said breaks were not always able to be staggered as I could end up going to theatre at any point during the shift. I remember ironing 3 uniforms one week thinking goodbye life see you in 4 days when I’ll be far too tired to do anything.

I gave it up for an 8-4 specialist role & have got my life back.

The unions are a bit conflicted about these whacky shifts. On the one hand, the evidence point to adverse health outcomes, doing them; on the other , (young) staff think they're great.

I think this will all come home to roost.
I have 9-5 colleagues, almost 60, who have young 14 hour shift colleagues accusing the 60 year olds of being lazy. I'd accuse them of being stupid. There won't be 9-5 options available in 25-30 years time. When they need them.

But they all assume they'll have moved on from the career by then....

Did this for years and it's a killer. No time to adjust or winddown, you go to bed thinking of work because you just finished and no time to relax so no sleep. Next day the same. Then days off and too wrecked to do anything, but the housework still has to be done. Now thankfully retired but the insomnia continues not to mention the chronic pain due to work related health issues.

DH used to work a similar shift pattern but holidays were also fixed for the end of each 6 week block. So there was some recovery built in as the fixed holiday was 10 days each time. That wasn't very family friendly though and the data is that rotating night shifts is very bad for your health from your forties onwards especially.

Yes, it’s definitely a young person’s game. Or at least a love / hate thing. I loved those kind of shifts when I was young with no other responsibilities. By the time I got to 30 I had changed speciality to escape them. Now I would almost certainly never go back (except for the odd bank shift) as even though I would absolutely love to do work in some of the areas, the shifts destroy your life.

Totally agree Miljea, there need to be options for those who can’t do the shifts anymore. Otherwise people just leave entirely.

In my industry 2 12 hour days, 2 12 hour nights and then 4 off is the standard... I couldn't do it.... The swapping times was horrific... I'd rather do 4 nights for a month/6 weeks and then same as days.. Can't be doing with the swapping about.. On top of long hours... As PP have said its really not good for your long term health

I'm an ED sister and have worked this shift pattern for nearly 24 years, I only work nights though. Its exhausting.
I do very little on my days off, I just want to sleep.
I avoid meeting up with friends (pre covid) because I can't be bothered to do anything.

Not sure I can do it for much longer. I've worked there for so long I'm not sure what else I would do. 9-5 doesn't appeal. Think I need to retire!

My maths is appalling but 3 on 3 off seems like quite a lot of hours over a 4 week period! We do 3 x 12.5 hour shifts a week plus 2 short shifts for admin duties every second week. Less senior staff do a 4th shift every 4th week to make a weekly hours balance of 37.5.

I do the roster for a ward with 12.5 hour shifts and work them myself. I find 3 in a row a real struggle and have occasionally done 4 but feel like I might lose the plot by end.

I don’t tend to do nights either, I think switching from days to nights is a killer and it might be better to propose a 4 week block of days and then nights rather than the rapid change if you could bear it.

I did permanent nights for years and got used to that but switching is tough.

I’m in my late 40’s and a combination of the shifts and the job means I am sick of nursing and desperate for a way out. I really can’t see me coping in 10 or 20 years time.