UKC

I work in healthcare and have to do on-calls every couple of months. I receive no extra pay or time back for this duty, but that's not the issue. To date on call has meant that I am on the end of a line to give advice if a problem arises, and that has been it. in exceptional cases, e.g. a fire or an unexpected death you would be expected to come in.

I was on call at the weekend, very quiet with no calls. I open up my email this morning to find a message from a big boss to say that as I was on call I should phone in over the weekend in the mornings and afternoons to check that all is ok. This is to help with discharges as we are short of beds.

This email was sent at 7pm on Friday night, and as I left at 5 I hadn't seen it.

Two issues, is it reasonable to expect on call staff to monitor emails given that these could come in anytime, and if ringing in twice per day is a scheduled activity how can this be an on call issue?

What is reasonable should be set out in your contract of employment or at the very least in set out somewhere and agreed by the staff implementing it.

You pretty much nail it here.

Edited to make any sense at all.

On call in my opinion is emergency work only. Routine tasks like you describe are not emergency work. 

Also in my opinion you should be renumerated for your time on call, the chances are though that this is incorporated in your sallery. 

You should be paid if called but again this may be factored in to your sallery for a given amount of overtime.

Picking up emails outside of work, screw em. If its an emergency then pick up the phone.

In my work if I am on-call (and I get paid for this, like hell would I do extra work / change my plans / stay home etc for free), if there is a problem I am called. If there is a problem and no-one calls me, there isn't a problem. If I get called and I am not on-call there isn't a problem (I do make exceptions to this if the person that is on-call, calls me and is in a flap).

Expecting you to check in to make sure everything is okay, sounds more like being in work than being on-call (and you should get paid as such).  We also have on-call, and on-standby. On-call we have up to an hour to response, and are paid per hour we are working. On-standby we are expected to be available straight away and are paid in full for the period we are on-standby, if we are needed or not.

I really don't understand why people do their paid job for free.

Re the email: if an email is sent to your work account then you can only be expected to read it when you are actually in work. 

As for the phoning-in, if you - as the on-call person - have not been called then "all must be ok".

If you get e-mails sent to your phone then you are alerted to them just like text so you see them no matter where you are if you have your phone with you. 

Being on call means you will go into work outwith normal hours work if a situation requires you there and for that you must get paid. 

https://www.cesi.org/the-matzak-ruling-of-the-court-of-justice-of-the-europ...

recent EU case which may assist you. it relates to Belgian firefighters but applies to british working time regs. and so will be relevant to your job. In essence, the more tied you are to work, even when at home, the more likely this is to be "working time"  - which could cause all sorts of problems for daily and weekly working hour limits for your employer

I  would speak to your union

They are extracting the urine.  

On-call.

Precisley that. Call me and I will deal with the problem when called. 

What is your expected response time? If they want you to respond immediately then that’s not on-call, that’s working from home where you have to sit there and wait for a call.

If they’re changing the way they want to you to operate then I’d be expecting a discussion resulting in a minimum overtime of one hour at the beginning of the day and one hour at the end for having to stop what I’m doing, get out and start up laptop, go through and answer emails. 

Would be interesting to hear an employment lawyer on this as this ruling has been ignored in the UK. As things stand (I have spent 1/3 of my working life on call) being on call does not count as working and, contract dependent, does not qualify you for additional pay. Receiving phone calls can be required of you and, again, not considered working. Being called out does count as working although whether it starts when you leave the house or arrive at work seems to be a bit grey.

As I said I'd be interested to hear if I'm wrong. FWIW if the Belgian ruling was applied, the NHS could not physically or financially function. I suspect the working time directive is one of the most ignored laws in the UK.

I am surprised that any employer can claim that taking work related calls is not working. the essence of the Matzak case are the geographical and temporal restraints on pursuing ones own business / leisure time when on call.

it does apply to the UK - it simply hasn't been tested here yet (and of course there are the opt outs which apply)

this judgement does not apply to  the minimum wage regs however  -which operate under different criteria - so even if this was classed as working time, it would not necessarily equate to any pay - that would be a contractual matter

My wife works in healthcare too, 6 days per week.  In addition she generally has around 2 on-calls per week.  This means she needs to go in for a shift if the unit is busy - happens on average 50% of the time.  She gets paid for this, but standard rates.  

I'm pretty sure all doctors opt of of the EWTD

There are all sorts of reasons why people are forced into working situations they aren't happy with, people don't choose unfair working conditions out of preference.

I am sure that is true, but if you don't try to influence change in them conditions they are not going to change. Just shrugging and saying its just the way it is, won't get excrement done.

(This is coming from someone who tried to influence change and left a reasonably comfortable job for somewhere that had better working conditions but more difficult work)

If i was on call - and expected to answer within a given time - you would get paid a flat on-call rate - and then a call out payment too - so that may be more than one - depending on how many times you were called out.

If you are expected to check in during the day - that is not on call - that is working!

And i thought there had been a legal case passed regarding requirements to monitor work emails out of working time.  Ill go look on the internet for that one.

When I worked for a contractor to London Underground my shift pattern was 4 days days, 4 days nights and 4 days on-call and 4 days off.

If someone went sick when I was on call or there was a hole in the shift pattern due to someone leaving I was expected to cover otherwise it was free days (excepting drinking alcohol during the period, so that I could attend any time if required).

If my boss rang my company phone then I was expected to attend otherwise it was extra days off.

So it wasn’t so much as doing my job for free but extra days off if not required. So overall not a bad deal.

Are you NHS? Standard payment for an on call session is around £18.90 but you get paid it whether you’re called or not.

Great value for money are NHS staff as it equates as about £1.25 an hour for an overnight on call, where you’re evening is ruined and you may get a call to come in at daft o clock.

On call means on call for an emergency to me. You should get a flat payment plus payment for the time you’re on the phone/travelling back to work/ being in work.

good luck

If I'm on call it would mean being contactable by telephone at all times and within the agreed amount of time of being able to fire up the laptop and deal with a problem (only) in the event that it can't be dealt with by staff on duty (or to attend the office within an agreed, but longer, period of time if necessary).  I would expect to be able to do whatever activity I wanted within those time constraints and not to have to sit watching the laptop - that's working, not being on call.

But it's all down to what was agreed; there's no fixed definition.  And there are exceptions - I might agree to monitor e-mail if I could get it on my phone, for instance.