I am concerned that employees are not given enough rest/recovery time when asked to do occasional night work.  I have looked on https://www.gov.uk/night-working-hours/hours-and-limits but it is still very unclear. 

Occasionally, employees are asked to do a full day's work 7am - 3pm (construction), followed by night work from approx 10pm until approx 3am.  Now here's my biggest concern, they are then often scheduled to work a normal working day the following morning which generally starts at 7am!

I am sure this a huge risk and want to warn my director but I am struggling to find the correct legislation to try to justify my concerns.

As I say, this is occasional, not a regular occurance but I am very concerned.

I suggest it is not just a legal duty but a moral duty to ensure your staff are fit for work and not exhausted due to a lack of basic sleep and rest. I assume some of these operatives are road users which throws another angle into the equation. If there should be a serious road incident and it could be proved it was down to tiredness of the driver then your company could be prosecuted.

This has been a concern for me also for sometime now, as we also have occasional nightshifts going from one show to the next.  And only having a small crew its even harder to manage should i be a man down for leave or sickness related, then theres always someone who has to pick up the slack.  We do our best to spread the load between all memebrs of staff but we are not unionised and I generally dont have any hassle and the lads are greatful for the extra hours, but yes the whole fatigue issue does concern me also.  There have been times when ive had a guy on a 12hr nightshift and brought him back in again 9 hours later for another 7 hour shift.  These dont happen very often though and he would always get the following day off to recover!

Thanks for all the replies and valid advice.  I have found the following infomation to be correct:

First of all,  your workers that wish to work beyond a 48 hr week must sign an Opt –Out form.

If some workers are required to work on occasions during their rest period then they are entitled to ‘Compensatory rest’.

In a nutshell – yes you can get workers to work outside of their normal working rest periods but they must be given their rest back and as a company you must be able to demonstrate this. 

I have seen on Construction sites, especially with East European workers that they would work a day shift on a site and then go that evening to another site and work Nights there also. Coming back to the day site next morning, looking like Zombies. 

I remember throwing off a site a whole gaggle of Workers who had just come in that morning as if they were sleep walking, Crazy

This of course happens all the time in healthcare and it's not just about staff possibly making mistakes because they are tired. There are lots of concerns about the long term health affects on the individual as well.