AIBU to ask why emergency services staff work 12 hour shifts?

[Cuppaand2biscuits]

I'm just watching Ambulance on BBC 1 and appreciating the incredible work of our paramedics.
Just wondering why in such a physical and emotionally exhausting job do they work 12 hour shifts?
Same in midwifery, nursing, police etc.

Babdoc, To be fair, doctors ridiculous hours are hardly a secretive.

I used to work, at 21, in my frontline HCP job, a 27.5 hour shift 1:9, 09:00 day one, to 12:30, day 2.

Completely bloody ridiculous. I was unsafe, to me and my patients. I fell asleep at the wheel driving home on one occasion.

This is not a race to the bottom.

It should be an examination as to why so many HCP workers are now, apparently, actively embracing 'getting their hours out of the way' in as few a days as possible.

Personally, I think it short-changes patients, it damages health, it restricts longevity in the professions, and it makes latch-key kids of our DC.

I am nonplussed that this decimation of Family Life has been normalised to the point where people are applauding 12 hour shifts (which are actually 12.5hr, as 12.5 x 3 = 37.5hrs, most HCPs contracted hours; add a 30 min unpaid break, live a 30 min drive away, and that's 14 hours away from your H, P and/or DC.

But only on 3/7 days. On 4 days you can be with your family 24/7 if you want to be.

3x 14 (your example) = 42 hours a week out of the house.

v

5x 9 = 45 hours out of the house.

It's cost effective tbh. In my service the majority of staff work 2 days/2 nights 4 off on a 12 hour shift. The ambulances are restocked and checked between each new shift so therefore they only need doing twice per day rather than 3 times for 8 hour shifts.
We get a longer break window in which to allocate a meal break. There's also end of shift tasking policies meaning you can't allocate lower acuity cases in the last hour of shift to try to give staff the chance of finishing on time for a decent work life rest balance (just to clarify immediately life threatening cases can be allocated up to the very last minute of your shift, even if you're then travelling over your shift finish to get to them)
Working longer shifts means more rest days although we now also have allocated leave so we're unable to book specific days/periods off. Therefore staffing is preplanned giving scheduling a easier task.

I've worked several Rotas over my 11 years so far and tbh 12 hours works better for me particularly as my partner is also in the service so we can juggle childcare and home commitments better.

moreslidingdoors please explain how you can be with your family more if they are, like the vast majority of the rest of the population, at school, at college, at 9-5 work?

Or do you mean you enjoy all the time you are home alone without that hassle?

Which is a perfectly valid reason. But that's not what you said.

I am disturbed by how many people are attempting to get their hours in, in caring jobs, in as few a days as possible.

The people who it actually benefits are the B7 and 8 managers who are tucking into their third Pinot while you start the final third of your shift.

I'm seeing quite a few high five 🙌 in the hallway families on here.

I can’t do my job role if I don’t do shift work. It’s as simple as that for me.

I high five my husband when I’m lateshift, he comes in at 5.15 and I’m out the door after a quick chat. It’s not a problem.

No. No highfiving happening here. We both dropped shifts after having the kids rather than just me taking the hit.

So for e.g. I work 2 day shifts, he works 1, I work 1 night shift, he works 1. We have 12 hour rest periods between shifts where we're both at home.

One of us is always at home to do school runs/swimming/dance/footy and we get family time. It's certainly not 9-5 Monday to Friday and takes organisation, communication and a alternative view to make it work. But 'work' it does... generally.

Nick absolutely. All my posts haven't been about not doing shift, it's questioning the, in my eyes, damage 12.5 hour shifts are doing, and how accepting people are, because they're either young and single, so Sunday and Thursday hold the same weight; or they Just Want The Minimum Number Of Days at work which makes me concerned about patient care; or who attest how well it works for them because they get to high-five their partner in the hallway as they effectively handover the child-care 'shift'.

12.5 hour shifts work beautifully, in the long term, for managers who work 9-5.

I think the long term fallout for those increasingly being forced onto them is yet to be properly measured.

Anecdotally: both my B7 managers are pushing for 12.5 hr shifts. Currently we work 4 'long' days 08:00-17:45 x 4, over Mon-Fri (plus 1:7 on call from home).

The possibility of doing voluntary overtime, 8-8 Sat or Sun exists. One did one day, one did the other. Both went sick due to 'exhaustion'; one Mon, one Tue.

The B8 managers don't care, neither was back-filled.

One of us is always home.....

moreslidingdoors please explain how you can be with your family more if they are, like the vast majority of the rest of the population, at school, at college, at 9-5 work?

School and college is a maximum of 190 days a year.

A 5 day per week worker will work a maximum of 233 days per year.

Work 3 shifts per week and you’re working a max of 133 days per year. That much flexibility is worth it to a lot of people.

Dh is a paramedic and says it's basically to do with cost, they can choose to do 8 hours or 10 hours on overtime but mostly they end up doing 14/15 hours a shift. Its exhausting for them but then he gets 9 days off in a row without using annual leave!

Miljah I’m actually confused as to what your point is? Shift work is a necessary evil, for whatever reason people do it, regardless of being a 8/9/10/12 hour shift.

And no, neither me or my husband is always at home. I have a childminder I use also.

One of us is always home.... and we get family time. So for e.g last week I worked Sunday Monday day. He did tuesday. We were both home Wednesday day. I worked Wednesday night. He worked Thursday night.
We were both home Friday Saturday Sunday until the pattern restarted.

As I say it takes an alternative view, but if we both worked mon-fri 9-5 we'd never do the school runs and we'd have sat and sun to cram every thing in.

Horses for courses I guess, but then (devils advocate) I also think there should be more flexibility, we really fought to make this work for us and certainly couldn't gave requested these hours as new starters.

Ok, it's late. I'm still up because I am on-call for my HCP job, til 08:00, and, due to the inexperience of the duty colleague, fully expect to get called at some stage (15 mile round trip 🙄).

Were it not unacceptable to do so; at 56, I could name you 3 couples I know who congratulated themselves on the childcare savings by tag-teaming childcare, over the past 20 years, who, once the DC no longer needed childcare, discovered they barely knew each other. Fitting stupid work hours, nights and long shifts around childcare meant they never spent time together as a family. It worked for them, too.

Til it didn't.

I guess what gets me is how 'okay' so many people are with a work pattern that, in the long term may well not be okay for you and your family. Or your health.

It seems like such a backwards step to me.

People have to do what works for them at that time of their lives. It’s not unheard of for couples to find out they haven’t a lot in common once the kids grow up, but that’s nothing to do with shift work.

Shift work is not healthy, all shift workers know that but it is necessary.

And I don’t think I save any money by working shifts, I still pay the childminder the same as what I would do if I was dayshift!

12hr shifts is way better than 8hrs.

Typically, on 8hr shifts, people work 6-2, 2-10, 10-6. None of the shifts are ‘good’. You’re either up very early, or you’re at work when you’d be relaxing with family/friends, or you’re waiting to go to work. You can never, ever, on a working day have a proper evening out.

If you do 8hrs you have to work 5 days per week to get 40hrs in. If you do 12hrs you do 3.33 days per week, on average, to get the same hours in.

Would you really prefer to be sat looking at the clock waiting to start work at 10pm, or be there at 6pm getting on with it, looking forward to several days off?

I think people who pick fault with 12hr shifts have, a) probably never worked shifts, and b) have no appreciation of how tiring 5 x 8hr irregular shifts are if they’re using the ‘long hours’ as a reason to fault 12hr shifts.

The amount of services to cover means 2 12 hours shifts are easier to plan. For my dept anyway.

Although we do 12 hour day, followed by a 12 night sleep day followed by a 9-5 which is the followed by 2 3pm-11pm shifts.

Have no idea why we can't to a uniformed 3 long days, rest days, 3 nights etc. It would be much better for my body clock.

I work an 8-8 shift giving an out of hours service once a week, this gives me an extra day off. Would rather do this than work less hours but every day.

It's not shift work I'm talking about!!!

It's 12.5 hour shifts!

I have repeatedly stated that it's the length of the shift that is the issue, and how shocked I am about how so many people positively embrace a work pattern that has been demonstrated to be detrimental to health, at the very least, to family life, to patient care, in order to minimise contact days at work.

I work in one of the few depts in the nhs where we don’t do 12.5 hour shifts. I work in theatres. We do 4 days a week at 9.5 hour days 8-6. We do a 24/7 service so do have unsociable hours but these are late shifts 12 or 1pm to 9.30 pm and nights which are 9.15-7.45 which I much prefer than a 12.5 hour night (ours is 10 hours) and although we technically only get half an hour break we pretty much only work for a few hours of it (you get the odd night now and then of course). We also have to do on calls as a second theatre team has to be available at all times during the night in case a second theatre needs to be opened but again only been called in once.

It’s not shift work you are talking about but you are talking about 12 hour shifts 😂? That IS shift work!

People are quite entitled to prefer long shifts and medical professionals have posted that it is preferred as there is less handovers to give.

I’m not medical staff, by the way.

Police do 8 hour shifts here. (Not word of mouth I work there lol)

I am in a Trust where there are 2 teams on 2 sites doing exactly the same job.

The other team have managed to secure a maximum of 10 hours (day) shift, with 12.5 'available' if someone chooses, (see, Nick, I am talking about shift length, here... 😉).

This is because they enforced 12.5 hours on their staff, and several key people walked, having already worked them, and having realised that the degree of forensic concentration required cannot be sustained over 12.5 hours. These are 12.5 hours of appointed patients here. There is no 'quiet periods'.

So they produced the peer-reviewed evidence demonstrating how 12.5 hr shifts might decimate a workforce, as it did, so management capitulated.

However, on my site, none of the B7 managers have routinely done 12.5 hrs (and sling sickies once they have...).

Maybe if you're in a 'sit around and wait for some action' HCP role, it's different to 12.5 hours of appointments?

Are you asking if I am in a “sit around hcp” role?