EBME Forums Forums Maintenance Technical Assistance Early Morning Call Out

No Geoff, not a new breed but a new name for the standard ITU or SCBU technician. We like to differentiate our teams of technicians here, hence Equipment Care tech team and Near Patient Tech team.

Thanks for that, John. So am I right in thinking that these good people are engineering technicians working in close support of users in critical areas, rather than clinically "hands-on" themselves (in the patients sense)? Do you also have staff positioned within Theatres, as a matter of interest (and dressed in greens [blues])?

Perhaps we need a new topic here.

I know we are getting slightly off topic but it would be rude not to reply, so here goes...
Geoff, the Near Patient Team is more clinically orientated but they do have first line fault diagnosis skills and can function check and recalibrate their own equipment when required. Equipment that needs repair is passed on to the Equipment Care Team. Unfortunately we do not have staff based in theatres. What we do have is the ODA or Operating Department Assistant. They are supposed to have much the same skills as our Near Patient Team but this does not seem to be the case in practice!

Thank you, John. It's an interesting concept. I thought we had covered it before, but have not be able to find the previous thread. And I've got to get back to work now!

Meanwhile, there has been a post about theatres on one of the other biomed forums. It has always puzzled me why biomeds tend not to be stationed in the very place where they are often most needed!

Oh no it's not, The working time directive has holes big enough to drive double decker buses through when it comes to on-call etc.

For instance nowhere is "compensatory rest" defined and this has not been defined in any of the test cases brought to court since it was instigated.

The WTD examples quote that compensatory rest can be taken as part of the weekend after the statutory 35 hour break, which implies that compensatory rest does not have to be paid. Many employers are now no longer paying periods of compensatory rest.

In short until a test case is taken out on these specific issues no-one is sure where they stand, and the area is so grey that no-one wants to take out a case incase it goes against them.

The only plus point at the moment is in the small print of the "Jaeger" judgement, where the presiding Judge stated that employers should "encourage" workers to take compensatory rest as soon as possible, and non-payment is definitely not encouragement!

Paul (Hope this doesn't sound too trite I've spent many many hours trying to pin down "compensatory rest" )

we have a trust policy. same rules apply to everyone.
on another oc matter whats hapened to the %age payment issue for on call this was an A4C matter seems to have died a death?

I have worked in Hospitals that do on-call, and those that do not. I far prefer the 'do not' category, but the Hospital does need to have a contingency in the event of an emergency. The contingency is normally an alternative device.

Also, to allay fears, it is possible to put a process in place to have 'hotline numbers' i.e. I would give my mobile and home number to the switchboard (and that of my chief tech), they were only allowed to phone me if the duty manager had asked a series of questions:

Can it wait until the next working day?
Do you have an alternative device?
Can you borrow an alternative devices?
etc.

The duty manager would then decide whether I should be contacted.

I had one call in 10 years that i went to the hospital for, and that was a catastrophic power outage.

We have several O/C groups covering different areas of expertise (depts.) so we have several staff on call at any one time. I would very much welcome no O/C but i can't see how hospitals cope without it. I'm thinking along the lines of setting up and administering Nitric to ICU or NNU patients or setting up other specialist treatments such as HFOV. We cover stuff like this (along with dreaded blood gas machines)because staff cannot maintain familiarity with such infrequent treatments and also the risk to patients if things are done incorrectly (e.g. giving a N2O bolus to a patient if regs etc. are not purged.)
I have been called in the early hours and have simply come in around 11ish and put my usual start time on my timesheet. My philosophy is that as O/C is voluntary, i'll do my share as long as i don't suffer detriment for doing it. Some staff don,t do O/C by choice so this remains a mandate for me to come off if they start to squeeze us in my opinion.

We also work on-call at our hospital covering the same issues and equipment as Topper mentions.I can't forsee a time in the near future where we won't work On-Call unless we start working shifts as our attendance will always be required either in the night or at weekends.We also work a flexitime system where we need to be in between core hours 10am to 2.30pm, so as there is no formal procedure in place to give compensatory rest to On-Call staff.So our only course if we're totally wrecked is to clock in a bit later but then we have to make up that time so that our weekly hours of work total 37.5hrs.