Sorry this is so long but I need to rant! I work as a theatre nurse in a busy day case surgery unit. All staff in my dept have recently received a letter detailing planned changes to how "on call" shifts will work. To give a bit of background, the current system is that all theatre staff do on call shifts in addition to their normal 37.5 Hr week where they stay at home but are available to come into work to assist in operations in general theatres if the night staff are unable to cope with the volume of emergency operations. They may or may not get called out but must stay within a 30 minute journey of the hospital and must be fit to work (ie cannot drink etc). A typical on call shift runs from 9pm till 8am and on a bad night it is entirely possible to be in for the majority of that time.
As it stands at the moment, if you are called in and you are rota'd on for a shift the next day you can delay the start of your shift in order to take sleep time. The number of hours that the start of the shift is delayed by depends on what time you were in till over night. E.g. If you were called in at 9 and stayed till 2am you wouldn't be expected to come into work until the afternoon. If you were in all night you wouldn't have to come in at all. This system has worked pretty well for some years.
However with the new system staff are not automatically entitled to sleep time. Any delay in the start of the shift has to be agreed with management in advance and it is allowed at the manager's discretion. Any sleep time which is taken must be paid back out of annual leave or the hours paid back at a later date. This means that a member of staff could work an 8-6 shift, go home, be called in at 9pm and work all night till 8am and then be expected to do their normal shift from 8-6 and if they want to stay home and their manager agrees which they don't have to do they will have to repay the time or take holiday! It is worth mentioning that there is currently no on call room in the hospital so anyone who does find half an hour to have a kip during the night will either have to go home or curl up on the chairs in the coffee room!
This has come about due to the fact that the trust can no longer afford for staff to take paid time off to sleep. Our unit is stretched to the absolute limit with several operating lists running with fewer than the recommended staffing levels.
The work we do is often complicated and we regularly literally have people's lives in our hands. The new system is not up for negotiation. It will be implemented from September. AIBU to think this is an outrageous way to treat nursing staff and that it is incredibly dangerous to be doing this sort of work on that little sleep. Also AIBU to think that if the general public were aware if this sort of practice they would be horrified and certainly
not want themselves or their relatives to be operated in at my hospital?!