NHS overtime

VfM4meplse

Poppy9 wrote: »

But it's not an excuse. If you know your contracted hours and arrange childcare around this then it's a valid reason to leave because a private nursery or a school will not keep the children after hours because Mum or Dad have unexpectedly had to stay at work till late evening.

If you know you have to work late on X evenings then you can plan your childcare ahead but if it's ad hoc then it's tricky. Not everyone has family/friends available at short notice.

I'm not denying that childcare is an issue - just that I have never seen management grade mothers of young children using this as a means of escaping fast. Perhaps they are better organised as a consequence of their responsibilities?

getmore4less

Cooper18 wrote: »

Some of these folks are most definitely sick, with the potential to get worse very quickly. They are inpatients in other hospitals for a reason after all, but transported to her for the specialist skills her department provides.

I hope they have been phoning the hospitals and teling them to come fetch their patient or send staff round to look after them they are not well.

if they are not well they need 999 back to their own hospitals where they might get looked after.

Poppy9

VfM4meplse wrote: »

I'm not denying that childcare is an issue - just that I have never seen management grade mothers of young children using this as a means of escaping fast. Perhaps they are better organised as a consequence of their responsibilities?

or perhaps being management grade they have more confidence to state their limitations and as management it's within their control to implement a workable system.

Lower grade staff who managers don't listen to end up having to just walk out at end of shift.

I am a senior officer in public sector. For many years I reduced my hours due to having to take responsibility for childcare as my OH was a Police Officer and he could be called into work on rest days, holidays and required to stay on duty at end of shift. As a senior officer I found it easier to work with my line manager to work out a work pattern that suited us both, with flexibility by us both. i.e. I would swap my days due to work deadlines or they would allow me to swap due to DD being ill etc. I have noticed that more junior staff panic at how to cover their childcare (or even older family caring) responsibilities as they don't feel they can speak up as they feel intimidated by senior managers.

flyer64

Your friend needs to claim for overtime each and every time she is "forced" to stay late (i.e. not when she does it of her own choosing). Hitting the Trust in the pocket will help wake them up too, especially if she's one of the higher bands.

As the others have said, she needs to go back to the union, speak to any professional body who could advise her (Society of Radiographers might help, even if she isn't one), and go back to her managers and say she can't continue to work this way. I know she has been doing it for ages but everyone has changes in their lives - doesn't the Trust have some sort of work-life balance policy?!

If it were me, (and presuming she's a Band 7), I'd write to the managers, some regional patient liaison group and the directors of service and say that I was temporarily suspending the service for such patients until a workable staffing and patient safety solution was put into place. I'd make suggestions on how staff could share the load, but other (bigger) issues are at play here - what if the ambulance doesn't show by say 8pm - what's the protocol? What if the patient becomes unwell (not that your friend is qualified to make that call for the most part) - what's the protocol for that? Who gets phoned? Do they know this department might be contacting them? What if the patient misses meds? What's the protocol? What if they miss dinner? Am I making a point here?! Then if she is not allowed to do this some very senior people are going to have to PUT IT IN WRITING back to her. I think this will offer her some protection if the sh** hits the fan. And it will, departments managed as poorly as this seems to be, will always have that one event that everyone asked "why did no one do something about this sooner?!"

Good luck, and well done for being such a good friend.