To not answer my phone when I’m annual leave?

[Elsiebear90]

I work in the NHS am clinical, fairly senior (band 7), started a new job in September and have witnessed and heard awful things about the management since I started. There is very high staff turnover in my department and morale is very low.

I have ten days of annual leave over the Xmas period, with two days during this where I am oncall. We all received an email today from our manager stating that as we have five members of staff off sick with Covid we need to be available over the Christmas period for work including additional on calls, which means some of us will have to come in when we’re on annual leave in the “worst case scenario”. Everyone I have spoken to has told me they just won’t answer their phones if called and that this could be prevented by the manager cancelling the outpatient clinics and/or diverting our emergency oncall service to a nearby hospital, which she apparently refuses to do.

My question is firstly does anyone with NHS knowledge know if she cancel our annual leave with next to no notice (she’s citing covid as an excuse for this) and also would it be unreasonable of me to not answer my phone if called?

My feelings are that it’s not really annual leave if the entire time I have to be available for work, I’m essentially oncall and not being paid to do so. I’ve seen online that NHS policy appears to be that adequate notice periods (length of annual leave plus one day) need to be applied and all other options exhausted before cancelling annual leave and this doesn’t seem to be the case here.

If you are on-call on a public holiday you should get that day of annual leave back in lieu

Well it wouldn’t surprise me if they were allowed to cancel your annual leave.
When I was a junior doctor in the 90s we had to carry the crash bleep when we were on call. For obvious reasons this bleep had to be physically handed to the person taking over the next shift, and if they didn’t turn up you had to keep it. I was once at work for 80 hours - it was bloody awful!

I'm not NHS or even health related but I'm high in a key managerial role in my company. Whenever I am on annual leave, I can expect to be on call. If an emergency happens to one of our projects, or director cannot manage a task, a member of my team needs support or we end up short staffed I expect to have to cover.
First day of annual leave today, boss called 3 times totalling 15 mins. I worked for around 1.5 hours helping the team when I'd put the kids to bed. I get paid for it/TIL dependant on what's agreed and I think its expected as you move onto more senior roles.

When you “fall over” and have to go on sick leave, then what happens?

NHS staff have worked flat out for the past 18 to 24 months.

They are burnt out and need a break otherwise they become another casualty of burn out

I’d not answer any calls from them and I’d turn my answerphone off so they couldn’t leave me a message.

If there were a major incident, of course it’s fine to help out, but this is not this situation here. Staffing has not been adequately sorted and it’s absolutely it the OPs job to make up for that shortfall by coming in on days off.

People need a break from work. That’s a basic human right. Stand your ground OP. The more senior people that do this, the more it empowers junior staff to be able to do the same.

It sounds like you need to get stronger with your manager. For them to just say you will be doing an extra on call without asking you (assuming this would be above your contracted hours) is plain wrong.

My DH also NHS also band 7 has 2 weeks off over Christmas. He put his foot down this year as he got very little leave in 2020 odd day here and there. And in 2021 he has a new no2 who decided she wanted - and booked without checking - all the school half terms meaning dh has only has 1 week off with the kids in 2021 (and only about 8 days overall).

He's exhausted and close to burn out. I told him if he didn't keep this leave I'd be talking to his manager. (He's 50+ this shouldn't be necessary but I have to protect him and our family unit). He has absolutely switched off his phone and it will stay that way until Jan.

You shouldn't have to but I would perhaps lay out exactly what you are prepared to do and not. And stick to it. They cannot legally cancel leave this close and they also cannot sack you for not responding on a day off. If your colleagues are all agreed then I'd stick with them otherwise you will be the scapegoat who does it all and noone will care when you get sick as a result.

I've never worked outpatient clinics but in acute emergency care if we were as short as we have been (1 nurse to 16 patients) and all and 5s/6s banned from annual leave for 2 main weeks at Christmas and I found out that multiple band 7's who manage us had 10 days annual leave over Christmas refusing oncalls and left us with no support i would also be handing in my notice. Times are incredibly tough in the NHS but there are some particular units where morale is low and turnover is high and the management of these units should be evaluated. For example, if we were 5 nurses down on a night shift and 3 band 7s and a band 8 on the day shift I would expect one of them to go home, get some sleep and get on the nightshift and support their staff.

I'm amazed at NHS clinical staff having 2 weeks AL over Christmas / NY. It's been one or the other (if you're lucky) in every NHS job (AHP) I've ever had

My understanding is they can cancel annual leave in theory, although I’ve never known if to happen. However, they can’t have it both ways they either cancel your AL before you start it and roster you some shifts/hours/on call time or they allow you to take the AL in which case you won’t be contactable (except for the days you already agreed to be available) they cant say your on AL but expect you to pop in for a couple of hours or be available on the phone. It’s one or the other!

I don’t know if it’s legal but the NHS trust I worked for did this, though it was more a courtesy request than a summons. Eg ‘if there’s any chance you can get in please could you work X days’ but if someone had a reason like no childcare or transport their leave wasn’t cancelled. Most people did try to make it if they could as ultimately you’re a team and patients suffer if nobody is willing to come in. Especially senior staff who are expected to set a good example.

Really whoever did the rota shouldn’t have let so many people take leave at once, but with covid it’s hard to predict who will be off or how stretched the service is.

During the first peak most of us with spring/summer leave had it cancelled to cope with the pandemic albeit with notice.

I'm possibly swimming against the current here, but turn your phone off.
Whatever state the workplace is in, that's not your problem. It's down to your management to suitable staff it or find replacements/cover/divert patients elsewhere where reasonable.

I work in healthcare too though not for the NHS, I do not pick up the phone to work when they call. Because quite frankly, the last few years have taken their toll. Everyone wants to talk about mental health, right up until we start talking about our nursing teams and healthcare teams. And then we are expected to buck up and get on with it.

Enjoy your time off op. You bloody deserve it

The NHS is in a level 4 major incident. Yes, they can ask you to go to work and cancel leave. Alot already have

@Phoenix76

This is just my opinion (fwiw 😬). Staff working in the nhs are still human beings. They have been pushed to their absolute limits since the pandemic kicked off almost 2 years ago (and most likely way before then if I’ve been understanding correctly) with no end in sight, in fact we’re again being told it’s going to get worse before it gets better.

Op booked their leave in plenty of time and yes, there is an emergency going on (it haunts us all every day), but there is no end in sight so how much longer can we expect people already running on empty to carry on like this without a decent break? Don’t we want our nhs (especially clinical staff) to be well rested so they don’t make mistakes or lose their compassion as they’ve given too much already. We all know who’s to blame for this but nows not the time to go over that. I think op needs a break, 10 days in the whole scheme of things that will buy us all extra time seems logical. We’re all very grateful for the ones that keep going but eventually even they will burn out which helps no one. I work in construction supply and we’ve never been so busy, can’t get days off, we supply the contractors who fix the roads, schools, hospitals, rail alongside housing, we’re all knackered and in danger of crashing, this is a common theme across our country. I hope op and those like them manage to recharge.

Very well said. OP your posts remind me very much of my own work (social care), it’s up to the people on the ground to prop up a broken system and it’s so wrong, little regard that staff worked into the ground may need some time off to recover from being pushed to breaking point themselves. It’s about time these delivering these key roles aren’t based on breaking the backs of the staff who run it without proportionate pay and time to recooperate.

I also work for the NHS and its been truly awful the last year especially.

I know people say that we should of course go in, caring for patients etc. However, you HAVE to have some rested time away from the place.

The NHS runs on good will - it shouldn't! All this extra unpaid over time and being on unpaid on call isn't fair on staff. We all have families who love us and want us well.

Being "on call" is horrible - you do have one eye on the phone the whole time. When you do go in - you are met with awful working conditions.

I know we are a caring profession - but we should have a work life balance that other people have.

www.gov.uk/holiday-entitlement-rights/booking-time-off-

According to the Gov.uk, they can cancel AL but need to give you notice - so if you’re off for a week, they have to give you a week + 1 day’s notice of cancelling it. This may be different to what your contract states - so check your contract before speaking to the manager.

If the patients get diverted to a nearby hospital surely that’s just shifting the pressure elsewhere? Due to the time of year and current circumstances with Covid they will most likely be in exactly the same situation as you. And if they cancel outpatient clinics all that will do is push the pressure back down the line. Those clinics will still have to go ahead. I sympathise with your situation but we are going through exceptional circumstances with a once in a 100 year event. I have to be on call for work should someone be unavailable to carry out certain tasks. You aren’t alone in this. I wouldn’t dream of not answering my phone if I got the call. And anyway there is always the possibility they will text you.

It’s a difficult one, OP. My Trust expects band 7s to be available out of hours. In the event of a major incident being declared, all staff have to be contactable. I expect yours is the same. We have to give a number and response time, so that if we get called in, they know when they can expect you to report for duty. We also have to say whether we can walk or use a car to to get there.

I’ve been called in out of hours for mostly weather related incidents, as I can walk to the hospital, and could provide clinical care or oversight, in any specialty. My current specialty in cancer services is not essentially an emergency area, however, if the hospital was at critical staffing, they would contact me to cover another area, just to have bodies about who knew what they were doing.

Do I agree with them cancelling your leave, or expecting you to be available? No, absolutely not. We’ve run ourselves ragged, and are running on empty, no matter what area you work in. But they can cancel your leave, if the clinical situation reaches a critical point and an OPEL status 4 is declared. I agree with PP, who advise having a conversation about what you could actually cover, and what, if any, reimbursements might result from this.

The problem with cancelling or diverting clinical commitments or admissions is that this may carry financial penalties from the government, which reduce hospital budgets, so managers are very reluctant to to reconfigure services if it could impact their wait times or incur charges.
Good luck with this one, OP, I hope it works out for you and you have a decent, undisturbed rest! 💐

To cancel annual leave they must give you twice as long as the annual leave as notice e.g. 5 days booked must tell you 10 days before it is cancelled. Not that it “might” be cancelled. I wouldn’t answer my phone in this situation. NHS staff are expected to give so much for free it’s ridiculous. The NHS runs on staff goodwill.

Band 7 nurse here and I would possibly negotiate days that were convenient to you other wise I would turn my phone off. Sorry but we are not robots that can just keep going. Doesnt make you "in the wrong profession" but simply a human with needs bigger than the job.

I think I need to clarify a few things as I wasn’t properly clear in my OP. The department I work in is not open 24/7 or 7 days a week, my contracted hours are Monday to Friday 8am-6pm with one day off, weekends, bank holidays and nights are on call. That’s what is in my contract.

I have 10 days off, but because of this I’m only actually using three days of annual leave, of which during two of these days I’m doing oncall at night.

My department is very multicultural and about 50% of the staff don’t celebrate Christmas so haven’t requested any (or very minimal) leave over the Xmas period, of the remaining 50% that do celebrate a lot of them haven’t requested much leave because they want it at other periods. So that’s why myself and some others have been able to have so much time off, there’s a band 8 with two weeks off, a band 6 with two weeks off and another 7 with 10 days off, as examples. I’ve not been given any special treatment it’s just the way the department is that a lot of people don’t want much time off. The issue is the manager has not prepared for covid sickness and has planned work as normal, now the staff who are supposed to be in are calling in sick with covid instead of cancelling the non essential work she has gone straight to cancelling leave with no notice.

@helenabonhamfarter

I'm senior clinical NHs- my leave has been cancelled today and I've also been told I'm working Christmas Day. The whole 24 hours. It's not great, I have very young children and elderly parents. But you know what, I chose the job I did to care for ill patients. Unlike other jobs people come to harm if there is no one to care for them. You don't sound very caring or professional to me- are you in the right career?

That's good for you. How noble.

Unfortunately for my job, I need my annual leave. It's there for a reason.

You also haven't accounted for other things that people may need to do in their annual leave, other than laying around eating mince pies, not being caring towards NHS patients. I do other things with my annual leave, such as medical appointments, childcare, fixing things around the house, shopping for elderly relatives, doing charity work, recovering from my chronic illness, spending time with my mum.

We can't all be such martyrs, but well done you.

Your manager sounds awful, OP. Don’t be persuaded by all the martyrs on here. As I said upthread, the more you enable a failing system, the worse it becomes. I’m surprised at the number of other NHS workers on here castigating you for wanting to work the hours you’re paid for! If they did the same, there would need to be a sea-change in how things are run. You help precisely no one by running yourself into the ground and being a mug and the one time you make a mistake because you’re so exhausted you can’t think straight, it’ll be your neck on the block

My partner is band 8, clinical and managerial; phone calls from superiors are ignored whilst some phone calls from more junior staff get answered as they’d only ring in an emergency….AL means just that

and this is why the NHS has a retention problem. People burn out. Turn your phone off.

If patient safety were a critical issue, a rota should be drawn up asking people to cancel day/s of leave and come in on an equitable basis, not asking one staff member to be on call for a week. Indeed, the OP being on call may mask planning problems - better to have a higher minimum strength and not give so many people annual leave than to put pressure on individual staff selectively.

I am NHS and on leave currently for a week. When I go back I fully expect to be asked to cover the wards due to Christmas leave and COVID absences, when normally I'm not ward based. That's fine, but I need my break first.

And although pay is not something the OP has raised, I want to add that while the OP has correctly described herself as a senior clinician, they will not be a higher rate tax payer. This is not someone on the kind of salary where you can expect that work will "own you" in return.

Pay is a very good point. When you’re earning £40K in the south of England, no one owns you! Perhaps £100K?!