To this this is rubbish pay?

[FutureMrsBourne]

We do an on call rota at my work.
You get no pay at all for being on standby, so basically if you don't called called out but you still have to stay home/local you don't get paid. If you do get paid all you get is £20 per person we see, so we can be 20 min or 2 hours if it's just 1 person it's £20.
Is this normal? Or rubbish?

Title is meant to say to think this is..

When I did on call we got an allowance for the time we were on call and then paid for the time we worked during that period. It was 24 hour on call if that makes a difference, so we’d do our normal work day then be on call overnight and through the weekend on our on call week.

I’m not sure how legal that is, as it could mean your pay drops below the minimum wage. I’d talk to the CAB about it.

That is rubbish. I work in an organisation where we have an out of hours system and someone on call for decisions. The only people who don't get paid specifically for the role are the most senior managers - however their role is only to make decisions/authorise something (so be available by phone not to go out) and it's part of their basic job description with a relatively high salary (upwards of 50k a year)
Anyone doing the day to day job gets their usual hourly rate, whether they are called out or not (they will still have to take phone calls in that time, but some things are resolved over the phone)

Yes I once had a role where on call wasn't paid. It means you're always listening for the phone, can't really go anywhere, and can't have a drink. Then we got paid our actual rate for the time we were at work if needed. And if you got called out during the night, you still had to work your shift the next day. Only the NHS could get away with such nonsense.

Thanks everyone.. I do wonder if it is legal too! @daffodilandtulip yep bang on its within the NHS!

That's crap. Vote with your feet and look for something better.

Employers like this (yes even the NHS) need to be made to find it difficult to recruit for positions like this so they have to improve terms and conditions. I mean no on call allowance and then having a flat rate piece work for calls that can take hugely different amounts of time - utterly taking the piss.

I have never been paid for on call (as it's oath of the overall job) but I got paid travel plus standard pay for going in. Taking turns for on call is standard in many professions

I think it really depends on the basic salary and conditions, and whether it's a role where this would traditionally be expected. Consultant cardiologist? Part of the expectations, reasonable that there's a genuine need/not going to be many people who could substitute, plus salary is reasonable (I hesitate to say well paid given the responsibility, but it's certainly higher than most) If it's say, a care worker role and it's because money is being saved by not having enough staff on shift, or to manage high staff absence, then it's not ok.

As far as I understand it you should have at least 11 hours from finishing work until you start again, under the Working Time Regulations, so no working during the night then back into work at 8 am.

Admittedly I left the NHS in 2018, but this was never the case. I often worked over 48 hours too. I tried to refuse once on the grounds of childcare, and the manager offered to call social care for me if I couldn't find someone to collect my children. The NHS does what it likes.

Thats bad.

i’m NHS and we get £20 per session for being on call. 1 session is 12 hours. Then if we are called out we are paid our hourly rate, this includes travel time from home.

I think £20 per session is also a joke as if your not called it’s less than £2 per hour and your never off as you are still waiting for the bleep to go off even if it doesnt.

It depends how you define 'on call' really - it's different in different places.

For example if you're 'on call' as a back up person who can come in and do a shift if someone is poorly on the day, that doesn't seem too bad to me. You go in for a shift and do your normal hours which are paid.

But if you're for example a social worker, then when you are called out, it is to a specific situation which as OP says could last 20 minutes or 2 hours or all night. It's a lot of effort/ sacrifice for relatively little reward and you are unlikely to be paid for a full shift.

For the latter kind of 'on call', you should definitely be paid an hourly rate for being on call, because you are sitting by the phone and anything could happen at any time. You can't live your normal life whilst you're on call, it's very restrictive.

Interesting. We are key holders so have to respond to alarm call outs, but it's part of our stated responsibility as managers. We dont get paid for it at all, but some discretion taken perhaps if we gave to open the site the next day. Our names are never off the call list unless we are on actual holiday. And works as a tree system so if person fails to answer, then next person called etc. Except we are not allowed to attend alone so it would generally be everyone getting disturbed!

I thought nhs on-call was fixed under AFC? We get a miserly rate of something like £20 a session (which is either 5pm-9am or 9am -5pm at weekends) but you do get your hourly rate for calls. The problem with our service is that lots of calls can be dealt with over the phone so you might be claiming for only 5mins of work on top of your sessional rate, yes have a whole night or evening ruined by having to stay local.
And we are entitled to comp rest after calls. Not quite sure of cut off times but a call after say 11pm means you start late the next day, between 2am and 6pm means the whole day off, call after 6am means that your day has started at the time of call so you go home early. Makes the normal rota a challenge!