NHS - My pot of goodwill is running low

[OutingIfYouKnowMe]

I’m pretty sure none of my colleagues are on Mumsnet, but if you are able to identify me please be discreet.
I’m not going to say anything I shouldn’t, it’s just a whiny rant really.
If you really know where I work feel free to pop up to the office and hear me moan in person.

I work with a small team in an area not dissimilar to a specialist theatre, within a large department, it’s a Monday to Friday 9-5 service, but there is an unofficial out of hours on call system to provide cover for emergencies, which works entirely on our goodwill and commitment.

The way it works is on “availability”.
This is not an official on call rota, we are not contracted or paid to be on call although we are paid overtime if we are called in.
Someone gets called in on average about two times a month, sometimes, like buses there will be three in quick succession and then a quiet spell.
There is a list of us all - when a doctor needs someone to come in they call the first person on the list, and if the first person doesn’t pick up or is unavailable then the doctor will have to call the next person and so on, working their way down the list. When someone has been called in, they go to the bottom of the list, and the next person rises to the top and stays there until they are called in - sometimes a person is at the top of the list for weeks, and if someone else comes in because the first person was not available, then they go to the bottom and the first person remains at the top. As a colleague is wont to say, there has never been an occasion when no one was available so it works, in its way.

Sometimes if the doctors have had a struggle to get hold of someone then the topic of an official on call rota pops up. I don’t blame them, they find ringing around stressful and annoying, they just want one number they can ring and tell that one person to come in.
So it rumbles on from time to time without any conclusion, it is rearing its head again now.

The problem is numbers.

When I started in the department there were seven of us on the list so it would be quite a long time before having a spell in number one slot.
Then people left for various reasons and for about a year there were just four of us on the list which meant one felt the weight of responsibility to be available more, obviously annual leave and /or sickness reduced the available pool even more. Now there are five, with a sixth who should be trained up sufficiently to join the list soon.

I have worked an on call rota before in another job - from memory there were six of us and we did about one night a week and one weekend a month, and I never found it onerous.
We were all full time and unless someone was off sick and extra cover was needed it was not a problem.
We were never on call before days off or during days off.

The problem we currently have is some of my colleagues are part time.
Good on them, they often cheerfully come in in the middle of the night when they are on their days off.
But as soon as the matter of an official rota comes up they insist they must only be on call on a pro-rata basis, which is fair enough.
Except that means that those of us who are full time would have to do full time pro-rata PLUS the additional on calls that aren’t covered by those who don’t do a full share.
Then there is the matter that one team member (not the one being trained up) is not competent to cover on call.
Don’t get me started on that as I could fill a thread, but its best I say no more, believe me I have griped about it ever since the situation arose.

A pro-rata on call divided between 5 or six of us would see the full time members doing far more than one night a week and one weekend a month and I'm definitely not going to spend half my life being On call.

Meanwhile, back to our unofficial "availability". Guess who's top of the list as we head into Christmas...
I’m not overflowing with the spirit of Christmas good will at present. One colleague is going away, fair enough.
Another is working agency on the day, to earn top rate money.
So that leaves three of us on the list with me at the top, expected to be available to drop everything and head in to work.
Do I want to spend all of Christmas sipping water and wondering if I will have to abandon the cooking, leave everyone to get on with the meal and I'll warm mine up later?
No I bloody well don’t.

But I will feel guilty if I don’t pick up my phone and it falls on one or other of my other two colleagues.

I’m just so over it.

I don't think it could become a redundancy situation @Winter2020 not least because there is someone who can't go on the on call so there's a precedent. No single mothers but obviously childcare can be an issue anyway along with any other caring responsibilities.

I think the agreement has been historical @Emelene
Different times, different staff, and different numbers too - when there were seven on the list it didn't seem much of a commitment, long periods of not being at the top and plenty of others to call on if number 1 was busy.

Well I’d be drinking Xmas day and if I get a phone call just say sorry I’m too drunk to work. What they going to do? If they don’t pay you they have no say over your off duty drinking.

A and B are also getting paid full-time. There are 3FTE positions in that example, and 3 turns on-call. If you don't get this, you will never understand the problem.

The problem isn't part-time people doing less on-call shifts, the problem is the team is too small.

Agree with @DogInATent . My take on it is that by raising this issue soon, you will be doing the hospital a favour in the long run. People in your team are unhappy because the team is too small - imagine someone goes on Mat leave, long term sick, moves area? It will be awful for the people who are still there - and they will look to leave, or go PT or whatever (maybe like you they are already considering it).

hospital need to recruit for your dept urgently and in the meantime pay you (or whoever does the shift) extra for unfilled on-calls. So they should move to a 1 in 6 on call system. The unfilled slots should be offered to the team at enhanced rate of pay (perhaps it will then be more tempting for the people who work bank shifts at the weekends). I don’t think it should be the team’s responsibility to fill the slots - it is higher management as they need to allocate budget.

'But on the other hand we don't have enough staff to allow some to do less and the full time staff shouldn't have to make up the shortfall as the amount of on call we'd have to do to cover it would be ridiculous. Split evenly between six it shouldn't be too onerous, it shouldn't be much more than one night a week and one weekend a month which is acceptable to me.
A couple of the younger staff often work bank shifts at the weekends to top up money. It's their days off. They are entitled to do as they please on their days off. But it does mean they aren't available..'

As PT worker, I'd move jobs if I was expected to cover for staff shortages on my days off, like in the above scenario. Your employer has no incentive to change things if people don't challenge them on this. The fact that 'it's only one weekend' is irrelevant - but my goodwill has already run out long ago :)

The overtime should be strictly pro rata and on working days. Agency and bank staff need to cover gaps in the rota

Surely you should have a resilience rota.
We do in my NHS department.
People get paid resilience money to actually be on-call and considering they are being paid for it they can’t refuse when they are called.
Are you a member of a union? I think you need their help.