Night Shifts and rotas

[thinkfast]

DH works on a rota that includes both day shifts and night shifts. Each shift is 12 hours. For 10 years his rota system worked well for him, and included one full week off every 6 weeks after a block of 4 night shifts.

About a year ago, the shift pattern was changed by his employer who said that they were doing it to reduce sickness absence across staff. They said working 4 nights in a row (once every 6 weeks) was disruptive to circadian rhythms and after a consultation period introduced a new rota that involved a maximum of 3 nights in a row. The new rota is generally hated as it involves lots of chopping and changing between days and nights and shorter blocks of rest.
Sickness days have risen.

They are now consulting about possibly changing the rota again. None of the proposed rotas look great. Again there is a maximum of 3 night shifts in a row, but there are lots of times in the draft new rotas when DH would come off a set of day shifts and immediately the next day work a night shift. The chopping and changing between days and nights without a break are really disruptive. There are also times when DH would do 5 12 hour day shifts in a row, which will be really tough. Previously there were never more than 4 shifts in a row (day or night).

His employer is refusing to consider a return to the previous, original rota on the basis that 4 night shifts in a row is detrimental. However, there's nothing to prevent someone doing overtime and working 4 or more night shifts in a row.

Is anyone aware of any studies about night work that could help demonstrate that rotating from days to nights without a break is detrimental? Something to help DH argue that a return to the original rota should be included in the consultation?

Working nights in general is bad for health. I believe there has to be a minimum of 11 hours between the end of one shift and the start of the next.

My husband is a police officer and used to do 7 night shifts in a row, all 12 hour shifts and then get 6 days off before rotating on to earlies, then on to lates, then back to nights.

The chopping and changing is hard, he does 4 nights and 3 days off now and now he's older he really struggles with the short changes between shifts.

Honestly, the fewer night shifts in a row the better for your DH. I'd take fewer nights and more days in a row over anything else.

Thanks for your comments.

He has to do an equal number of nights and days over the year. The issue is he prefers to do them on longer blocks of 4 shifts, with a longish break between shifts, whereas the new rotas involve shorter blocks of night shifts, which can involve a mix of day shifts followed by nights and shorter periods of rest days between blocks of shifts.

He finds the swapping from days to nights (and visa versa) hard so the frequent changes don't suit him.

Bumping for the night shift crowd. Any suggestions of studies I could look at that show that short chopping and changing between days and nights is detrimental, would be much appreciated.

While I agree with what you’re saying, the first article I found (not recent, 2008 meta review / analysis) seems to support the employers pov that a ‘fast rotation’ is better than a slow one🤷🏼‍♀️.https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0749379708001529
on google scholar, you can search something “shift patterns detrimental to health night shift“ lots of articles are on heathcare professionals / hospital settings, but you can refine your search terms and only include research from the last ten years for example - there is likely to be SOME sort of article which supports what you’re saying, it’s just how much time you have to search for it!

Thank you! I wasn't aware of google scholar!