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Michael66  
#1 Posted : 25 November 2019 09:26:36(UTC)
Rank: Forum user
Michael66

Hello,

Would be grateful for some advice on the following scenerio. An employee travels to work and sets off at 7am. Works a day of 8 to 4pm. Travels home, arrives home at 5pm. The employee is on call and is called out at 7pm.

He attends the call out and is out all night arriving back home at 7am. This equates to sleep depreviation with the employee not having been to sleep for 24 hours. I have looked into the WTD, however nothing covers this type of issue, I would think this would be covered by risk assessment.

Thanks

Michael

hopeful  
#2 Posted : 25 November 2019 12:34:14(UTC)
Rank: Forum user
hopeful

If I remember rightly there is some case law from quite a while ago stating if you are on call and it affects your life at home it has to be taken into account in the WTD.

However this is a clear case for risk assessment and safety and needs to be managed with hotel stays, time off etc

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Michael66 on 25/11/2019(UTC)
jmaclaughlin  
#3 Posted : 25 November 2019 15:14:56(UTC)
Rank: Forum user
jmaclaughlin

If I understand the WTD correctly your employee had already completed a full day’s work, so they should have a minimum 11 hour break before re attending work.

https://www.gov.uk/rest-breaks-work

“Workers have the right to 11 hours rest between working days, eg if they finish work at 8pm, they shouldn’t start work again until 7am the next day.”

Asking someone to work 22hours in one day is clearly wrong and should they incur an injury whilst carrying out their duties (or more likely driving home) you are very unlikely to successfully  defend that position in court/tribunal by attempting to mitigate it by a virtue of a risk assessment.

 

 

 

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A Kurdziel on 25/11/2019(UTC)
Roundtuit  
#4 Posted : 25 November 2019 16:26:27(UTC)
Rank: Super forum user
Roundtuit

The case law (primarily EU) includes on-call time as working hours which should therefore be factored in to the calculation of an employees salary and availability.

Plenty of union commentary on call-outs and WTD.

Breaks between working can be adjusted for on-call activity so for example if one break was 6 hours the next should be 16 (11 + 5).

Your problems really start where there is a single employee and they are expected to cover the standard days as well as being "on-call" - if they are that critical the business has failed to consider why is there not a second or third to cover holidays/sickness/out of work arrangements (weddings, funerals, christenings etc.)

Roundtuit  
#5 Posted : 25 November 2019 16:26:27(UTC)
Rank: Super forum user
Roundtuit

The case law (primarily EU) includes on-call time as working hours which should therefore be factored in to the calculation of an employees salary and availability.

Plenty of union commentary on call-outs and WTD.

Breaks between working can be adjusted for on-call activity so for example if one break was 6 hours the next should be 16 (11 + 5).

Your problems really start where there is a single employee and they are expected to cover the standard days as well as being "on-call" - if they are that critical the business has failed to consider why is there not a second or third to cover holidays/sickness/out of work arrangements (weddings, funerals, christenings etc.)

johnmurray  
#6 Posted : 26 November 2019 11:30:57(UTC)
Rank: Super forum user
johnmurray

https://www.peoplemanagement.co.uk/news/articles/on-call-standby-shifts-working-time
https://www.moorepay.co.uk/blog/employee-on-call-at-home-does-this-count-working-time/
Acorns  
#7 Posted : 26 November 2019 21:51:20(UTC)
Rank: Super forum user
Acorns

Appreciate OP is about WTD , something that is not enforced and AFAR has never been prosecuted over, I might be more mindful and basics over things like the Consequnces of the OP having a collision driving home or on the following shift.    Just a thought that it also needs to be managed. 

Andrew W Walker  
#8 Posted : 28 November 2019 09:07:14(UTC)
Rank: Super forum user
Andrew W Walker

Have a look for the ruling on the case involving 'Produce Connection'. This was an RTA that was most likely caused by driver fatigue.

Hoope this helps

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A Kurdziel on 02/12/2019(UTC)
chris42  
#9 Posted : 28 November 2019 09:36:05(UTC)
Rank: Super forum user
chris42

Perhaps put the WTD aside for the moment. Don’t you think your company has a moral duty not to expect or allow someone to have to be awake for 24 hours straight. You should not need to quote regulations; it is just inappropriate full stop and if you are having to convince senior people in your organisation of this by referring to legislation then you have a big problem and so do, they.

I suspect from your post you know this full well, so perhaps you show them these posts to remind them to be human beings. That call out in itself was more than a general working day of 8 hrs (12 hours – yes, I know people do work 12-hour shifts, but not on top of a normal working day).

If your senior people can not see this then perhaps, they shouldn’t be senior people anymore.

IMHO

Chris

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andrewcl on 20/12/2019(UTC)
johnmurray  
#10 Posted : 28 November 2019 14:00:57(UTC)
Rank: Super forum user
johnmurray

Judge Christopher Harvey Clark said: “You failed to ensure that you took sufficient rest. People should not drive when they are feeling very sleepy or, as you were, totally exhausted.

“All the indications are that long before the fatal collision you must, or should have, been aware of your condition.”

Palmer was jailed for seven-and-a-half years for causing death by dangerous driving and a further year for dangerous driving after ploughing into the back of another lorry on September 21, 2013.

https://www.fleetnews.co.uk/news/2014/9/23/company-investigated-after-at-work-driver-kills-two-cyclists/53601/

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johnc on 30/11/2019(UTC)
Michael66  
#11 Posted : 29 November 2019 16:32:31(UTC)
Rank: Forum user
Michael66

Thanks to everyone for the replies. The call out procedure needs to reviewed as it states the person on call can contact the duty manager for support and this needs to be reflected in the procedure & risk assessment. The question I was asking is how long can somebody work legally when they have attended work all day and had a break of 2 hours before being called out?

boblewis  
#12 Posted : 30 November 2019 08:10:32(UTC)
Rank: Super forum user
boblewis

Used to encounter this a lot in companies providing service/maintenance engineers. Procedurally we required that if the drive home was greater than 30min and/or the job was completed after midnight then a hotel stay was mandatory. Additionally next day attendance at work was not required but was paid. Much less than that leaves the company and operative very exposed.
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Michael66 on 02/12/2019(UTC)
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