Hi All I am after some clarification on working time and being on-call. We have members of staff who are required to work a full day, 08:00hrs thru to 17:00hrs during their normal working week. Then one week in four, at 17:00hrs when they finish their working day, they go on-call until 08:00hrs the following day, then come back to work to start their normal shift. From what I understand, workers on-call but based at home or somewhere other than their workplace, are only classed as working when called out. Our guys on-call activities involve taking phone calls, deploying engineers and speaking with customers etc. all by phone. How does this affect his uninterrupted eleven hour break and when do we decide it is work....one five minute phone call where the guy is woken at 01:00hrs for ten minutes, or several calls where he is awake throughout the night and maybe getting an hours broken sleep. They are also on a retainer whilst on-call. Many thanks in advance

As soon as the phone rings they have been disturbed during a rest period - old fashioned thought says the clock is now set to zero and after the call the 11 hour count down starts all over again even if it had reached 10 hours and 59 minutes. This is obviously balanced by the fact it is one week in four but I wouldn't like to justify requiring the employee to be back in work at 08:00 having had several or very late calls over the period. Back in my early career (and before WTD) workers on call who came to site and left before midnight would start duty at normal time the following day. One minute past midnight and they would be expected back on site that afternoon. In perspective we all have different sleep habits so while one employee can be "dead to the world" in seconds another may take several hours to settle back in to restful sleep - consider how well you sleep when you have to be up to catch that early flight for a holiday not rested, if at all.