Is our on-call system fair?

squ1rrel5

I work in a small team in the care sector.  Each member of the team is required to be on call out of hours (evenings and weekends) and works on a rota basis.  Typically someone is on call for 5 or 7 days, and on top of their monthly salary, they are paid a retainer of £15 per day.

On-call allows us to be at home, however we must have the phone with us at all times, stay local so that we are able to respond to any emergencies (where we go out to cover a care call).  If we are called out to cover a call ourselves, we are paid for that call at the standard hourly rate.  But if we don't have to go out, we are only paid the £15.  Whilst this may seem like a fair bonus for being able to carry on as normal with your weekend, in reality this never happens.  The phone calls are constant, we spend time calling round other carers to cover people going off sick, people having falls, and having to deal with the emergency services etc... its not easy to have a normal family weekend when you have the on-call phone. 

A set fee of £15 does not seem a fair amount of compensation to cover a whole day/evening of work (7am - 10pm) when you are actually working pretty much non-stop throughout those hours. 

Occasionally the on-call team have had to work outside those hours too as they've accompanied clients to hospital, or waited with them whilst an ambulance arrives and the pay doesn't change - still just the £15. 

Can anyone please advise if this is fair practice? 

elsien

It is pretty normal practice for the care sector.
As long as you are paid for the time if you are called out/working, I don’t think you can argue it. 

It’s similar to the challenge that was made a few years ago when care workers were looking to be paid the hourly rate for sleep/ins and that got overturned.
We used to do the on calls for 24 hours rather than 5 to 7 days, just so that we could have a social life in between times. 

Is it not the managers job to sort out cover for shifts though?

tacpot12

It would be reasonable to expect that working outside of the normal working hours (after 10pm) would be paid at your standard rate (at least). 

Also, when you are spending time calling round other carers to cover people going off sick, people having falls, and having to deal with the emergency services etc... you are 'working' under the definitions that apply to the national minium wage. You have been called to do 'work' and you are working. No ifs or buts, you might not have left home, but you are working. See here:NMWM08270 - Working time: time work: on call and stand by - HMRC internal manual - GOV.UK

Although you are not allowed to move too far from home, I think that this restriction relates to you being responsible for ensuring that you are in a position to perform work if called upon to do so, so it doesn't quite meet the test for your time on-call to be regarded as working time for National Minimum Wage.

If the phone calls really are constant and you spend time working as a result of being called, you will be better off being payed according to the national minimum wage than you are now. 

zagfles

Setting aside the issues of legality covered above, £15 a day is pathetic compensation for being on-call, whether or not you get called a lot. You are still heavily restricted in what you can do, eg can't arrange stuff like going out for a meal with friends, cinema, go swimming, go on a hike in the countryside, football match, drink in the pub etc. 

I used to do on-call (not in care) on a variety of rotas and we'd get in the region of £5 per hour for being on call, and if called overtime at premium rates.

But if callout is very regular it sounds like you need some sort of shift system, at least with shifts you can work evening/weekends and get time off in the day. 

Savvy_Sue

I'd recommend you all joining a union (if not already in one, especially as you're working in care!) and raising this with your local rep. Strength in numbers, and all that

squ1rrel5 said:

Occasionally the on-call team have had to work outside those hours too as they've accompanied clients to hospital, or waited with them whilst an ambulance arrives and the pay doesn't change - still just the £15. 

This I don't quite understand - if you go to hospital with a client, surely you've been called out of the home, so you're working? 

And, what happens if you're called out, so you're with a client, and there's another phone call - how does that get dealt with?

penners324

If your calling round to get shifts covered and then spending time in hospitals then you're working so should be paid as such

elsien

Savvy_Sue said:

I'd recommend you all joining a union (if not already in one, especially as you're working in care!) and raising this with your local rep. Strength in numbers, and all that

squ1rrel5 said:

Occasionally the on-call team have had to work outside those hours too as they've accompanied clients to hospital, or waited with them whilst an ambulance arrives and the pay doesn't change - still just the £15. 

This I don't quite understand - if you go to hospital with a client, surely you've been called out of the home, so you're working? 

And, what happens if you're called out, so you're with a client, and there's another phone call - how does that get dealt with?

Yes, that bit doesn't make sense when the OP says they are being paid if covering care calls.
If the OP is genuinely spending most of their on call time on  the phone, which seems to be the implication, I'd be looking for another job. 

Elliott.T123

OP, I think you need to clarify for us.

Are you saying that you only paid standard hourly rate if you personally go and attend a call?

If you spend time arranging for other staff to go to a call then you are not paid for that other than the £15 a day on-call bonus/charge/ call it what you will.

If that is the case I would be up in arms, I would expect to be paid for every minute I work and taking and making calls is work.
You most definitely need to double check you aren't dropping below the NMW.

LightFlare

penners324 said:

If your calling round to get shifts covered and then spending time in hospitals then you're working so should be paid as such

100% agree. Work is either paid as such or you don’t answer the phone

How is the payment calculated ?

Per full hour, rounded up or down. May be some room to negotiate that a phone cal is a minimum 15min and/or on call is paid as multiples of 15min

Savvy_Sue

I'm trying to remember what we used to pay for a week's worth of evening on-call: it wasn't as much as £15 per day, BUT there were very few calls. If someone had to actually DO something (like make a lot of calls to try and sort an emergency) then they'd report to their manager and we'd pay for their time on their normal rate, and the same if they had to attend the premises, but both those were extremely rare. There would be the odd "not quite sure what to do here" call, and "I just need to make you aware" calls, and yes it was restricting, but not THAT restricting.