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Hours worked


pinktoptube

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   I don't know that it is a regulation but studies have proved after 12 hours people start making more mistakes. We saw this with a tech who worked 14 hours in a Blood Bank where I previously worked. We could see by the work that was done in those last 2 hours. Also sometimes the work that needed completed but wasn't.

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I cannot tell you what the law is in the UK (I should be able to, but I can't), but what I can tell you is that, when I started, back in the 1970's,we used to work 09.00 to 17.00, then go on-call from 17.00 to 09.00 (and we were BUSY - not only no sleep, but no breaks for food or drinks), and then work the next day 09.00 to 17.00.  You were then expected in the next day at 09.00 for a shift until 17.00.  If you were on-call twice in one week - tough.

How we didn't kill our patients out of sheer exhaustion, I do not know.

I am glad to say that it is not quite so brutal these days, with either the day off before or after on-call (or sometimes both) or a more realistic 24 hour rota, but it is still not great.

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I have never heard of any such requirement but like Kathyang I have seen studies indicating that anything over 10 hours was not a good thing.  The last 14 months I worked is was Friday, Saturday and Sunday from 1800 to 0600.  It was a small hospital and I was not consistently busy by any stretch of the imagination but I can tell you that the last 2 hours were the most difficult.  That may have be age related more than anything else.   Having spent many years in facilities where the nurses in the most critical areas (ICU and ER) work 12 hours shifts, most of the nurse related mistakes I had to deal with as Transfusion Supervisor were with those nurses.  

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I do not know of any requirement such as this and none of the accreditation agencies that have come through including ISO have ever commented on this.  It could be a previous "rule" from an incident that occurred?  At one time people who did doubles were not allowed to work in the BB for both shifts, because the common factor(excuse) for errors made while doing a double in the BB was "fatigue".

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