NHS rota - advice and help (anyone in nhs hr/union)

[burntoutnurse]

I dropped my hours last year to 30 hours. To ensure I have a better work life balance. We cannot self roster, and I was continuously given shifts which meant I was in and out with often only one day off in between.

Now I'm 30 hours I'm doing three shifts one week. 2 the next,

However: the last few months and next months have generally been shit, for example.

Across two weeks in November I'm

M
T - night
W - night
T sleep day
F - off
S - Night
S - Night
M - sleep day
T - off
W - night
T - night
F - sleep day
S - off

My children go to their dads when I work nights so the first of that week I will see them after school until bedtime on thurs. A few hours after school Friday then they will be back at their dads for 2 nights.

Shifts are so short atm that we are often doing the full 12 hours without a break. I'm not getting time off in between to recover properly either.

I've emailed my ward manager and asked her to change two of the shifts to group them together but had a half arsed response and no offer to change them.

I'm already burnt out. I came back from
Extended sick leave in August and still haven't had my return to work interview either but did have a discussion with my manager upon coming back about grouping my shifts together and she agreed.

I'm not sure what else I can do, I can't afford to drop my hours again.

Any advice? They don't adhere to my current work life balance contract of every other weekend off, I've filled in one for having my shifts grouped together. Which seems to be ignored too.

Sorry I'm really struggling to understand what you're unhappy with in that pattern. Is sleep day a rostered day off?

So instead of two on, two off you want the weekend shifts brought forward so it's one block?

Also when do your weeks run from/to? If Monday to Sunday then in the current pattern you have 4 shifts week 1 and 2 shifts on week 2 - is that correct?

Yeah as previously agreed with my manager. Manager keeps passing the buck though,

Tuesday night, Wednesday night, Saturday night Sunday night, Wednesday night Thursday night.
how long are your night shifts?
is it the nights you are struggling with? Could you do days instead?

DP works 30hrs and has this problem too. I think being part time contributes to the ad-hoc shifts because they use you to fill gaps in the rota to cover holidays and days off, the usually rota the full timers first then slow the part timers in around them.

It's notoriously difficult to get but could you try to negotiate set shifts? Or at least one set day off? Do has managed to get a set day off which makes a difference.

It looks like a pretty standard part time roster to me

Supposed to be 12 hours. Often 13/14 due to workload

I'm do have a work life balance rota which gives me every other weekend off. But that's generally ignored. I've worked the last 3 weekends and I'm in this weekend too.

Can't switch to days as id see my children less because they would need to be at their dads for two nights to cover one shift where as they go for two nights atm to cover two night shifts.

I would focus on asking for your every second weekend to be upheld and insist on that.

Beyond that I don't think there's much more that would be reasonable to request, it's not great but most shift workers work a similar pattern to this.

Also a nurse & don’t think that rota looks too bad, if your working those 2 weeks of 3 shifts then you will have your 2 weeks of only 2 shifts. It’s the doing all night shifts that make it harder for you, you feel you are missing out on days off as needing to sleep, maybe a mixture of days & nights would be better.

I talked to the ward manager and the senior sister when I was hired about shifts, as we were required to do both nights and days and nights used to make me have more migraines with all the swapping and changes. They agreed they'd only give me a month each year.
They still gave me more nights than the other nurses they favoured and were friends with. I'd do three weeks of nights two weeks of days then back to nights. It's was bloody awful. So I quit and went to work in a dementia care home. Days only 24 hours a week and I earn more, the patients are lovely as are the staff. I'll never go back to NHS again.

Looks pretty standard for shift work tbh. What shift pattern are you wanting ? It can be difficult to accommodate everyone’s requests etc when you have the service to consider and multiple staff members. Can you not just swap a couple of your shifts with someone else ?

The problem is I assume that other people on the ward do days and nights so the night workers always have to do more slotting in , particularly if you are pt . Back in the day we used to do all the nights together over a weekend so Friday / sat/ sun / mon / tues and then have 9 nights off . Would this be possible ? Alternatively have you thought about just doing agency or bank work so you can pick which nights you want , obviously you lose the security but you gain the flexibility .

I think your shifts are worse because it’s all nights. It’s not as easy as ‘just swapping’ as a pp suggested it’s impossible to find someone to swap with. It doesn’t sound great, are you a nurse? I’d look at switching to bank or agency work or look for a new job. In the first instance I’d go to HR for advice about them ignoring your weekend off plan.

I'm confused, you are not on til Tuesday night so you will see them all monday and until you go to work presumably 7pm ish on Tuesday then see them after school on Thursday ? So Wednesday is the only day you don't see them ? Am I misunderstanding ?

It looks fine to me, and you only want night shift. If you want more breaks, maybe drop your hours more? Perhaps universal credit will help?

Looks good to me - I don't think they could be rostered any better?

They will go to their dads after school tues, I won't see them wed. Thurs after school they will be home, then back with did sat morning.

I leave for work at 5:30 due to commute

I'm not confused. You must be tired and feel that you aren't really getting 4 days off. Perhaps talk to them again or HR. If you are a nurse or doctor, it seems to me there is enough of a shortage without losing more people over crap shifts. Also surely nights shouldn't be every week but one on four or fewer? And shared out more fairly?

Can you not put requests in ? I’m our trust you can request up to 4 shifts a roster. So put your preferred days off in. Also we can request a flexi permeant patten so for example 4 nights on in a row Can you do this ?

That commute can't be helping, 5:30 is very early to have to leave for a night shift or a day shift TBH, could you get a job closer to home ?

Probably better to go private and ask to work set days.