Is this legal? Staff only allowed 20 mins break for a nine hour shift

[nottsgirl]

Old bill don’t get any entitlement for breaks. They work a nominal 40 not 37 hour week in terms of the hours used for working out shift patterns. So they have no entitlement to any ‘refs’ (refreshment) breaks. So if they get to eat or drink away from the car it’s a bonus.

Add to this that in every force every six months or so some bright spark senior rozzer -who did three days patrol ten years ago before heading into the ivory tower of HQ and desperately wants more bling on their shoulders - will come up with an initiative that in the event cops do get time to eat on a 9,10 or 12 hour patrol shift they should eat in a public restaurant to ‘improve visibility and public reassurance’ because what every dibblle wants after 7 hours of sorting out other people’s shit with another five to go is sitting in a Maccie Ds trying to catch up with paperwork with people constantly coming up and be saying ‘I pay your wages, it’s a disgrace you are wasting tax payers money eating on duty time’ and similar .

Apparently.

If you're working a 40 hour week, unless your week is 9 days long or something, I don't see how you're not getting a break?

 

[Callie]

I frequently see cops in uniform in takeaways waiting for food. Is that considered working?

 

[Elpenor]

If you're working a 40 hour week, unless your week is 9 days long or something, I don't see how you're not getting a break?

Probably to do with police not technically being classed as employees (they are classed as servants of the crown or something) so no entitlement to a break, perhaps also why not able to strike, be a union member etc

 

[A380]

If you're working a 40 hour week, unless your week is 9 days long or something, I don't see how you're not getting a break?

It’s the way it is. Get stuck with a job at the end of a 12 hour shift and you could do 14/15 hours with no break.

 

[A380]

Probably to do with police not technically being classed as employees (they are classed as servants of the crown or something) so no entitlement to a break, perhaps also why not able to strike, be a union member etc

Office holders. No employment contract just secondary legislation in the form of police regulations

(Judges and cops are the two main types of office holders. Crown servants isn’t an employment category, it’s a description of people who can carry firearms without holding a personal certificate. Mostly rozzers, soldiers and other members of the armed forces and a few others)

 

[InArduisFouette]

Your making out that the time in the attending seat whilst being driven around is some kind of “break” it isn’t, most of the time it’s finishing paperwork, safeguarding, communicating with TL’s or dispatchers, or looking up stuff on JRCALC on the way to a job, not to mention being a second pair of eyes for the driver or catching up with policy, hospital criteria changes or generic random dictats from management. If you’re single crewed on an SRV you don’t even get the luxury of attending seat time, you drive and attend every single job. Our trust is even trying to push for us not to be sent to station to be stood down for meal break now and want the ability to stand us down for meal break sitting in the vehicle with no access to facilities.

Whilst waiting for handover actually most of the time we’re helping hospital staff move patients, get trolleys, monitoring patients…… so no, that’s not even really standby is it?

You Appear to be trying to put words in my mouth. Attending is not 'a break' although a couple of days chaffeuring an NQP who isn't yet a driver might be informative to a view on the cognitive load that 'not attending' can lead to

my point about driving is that the actual 'wheels turning' driving time in a 12 hour shift can be as little as couple of hours each and probably will amount for at most 4 hours each if you are both drivers ( even better if you have 3rd hand who is driver as well) that said a 45 -60 minute blues run is absolutely knackering doubly so when ita PPCI / HASU /Major trauma run

if you are clearing from jobs before you have completed paperwork and choose not to seek time to deal with Safeguarding or IR1s then that is your call, certainly in services i am aware of a response to dispatch or the tac cell asking why you are not yet clear of ' finishing paperwork becasue was having to do stuff / reassure the patient all the way in ' will get you at least 15-30 minutes grace over your 15 minutes post handover period, and doing a full safeguarding referral is likely to get you the response of ' do you need to return to (a) station' ? and that is even with the Cat 2 pressures...

As for breaks in the vehicle , that is a no-no ( even with coolbags / cab fridges) , but I suspect that the aim of the trust is to 'compromise' that breaks will be taken at the closest Station/Hub ( or at 'high quality' , i.e. with facilities and a crewroom , standby point ) rather than returning you to your sign on location / base station for that shift, as in some trusts RTB for break turns a 30 minute break ( and theunavoidable downtime associated with that) into well over an hour, but at least it gets you back to your dispatch area...

 

[Elpenor]

I frequently see cops in uniform in takeaways waiting for food. Is that considered working?

For some, policing is truly a vocation

 

[InArduisFouette]

20 years ago standby was much more of a thing. We have people at work who tell us they used to do nightshifts and would get maybe one job, then sleep and pretty much get a full nights kip…… I think really only the fire service get that now. Normally on nights we’re fucked, it’s not uncommon to get a category 1 call with a 45 minute run time on a night (it’s meant to be 7 minute response), the police are even worse, they’ll often have 6 or 7 category 1 calls and no one to assign at all, often at weeks, particularly with a full moon.

But we do also have roadside standby points on the rare occasion there aren’t outstanding jobs, so you might find where they were sitting were roadside standby points. The idea of this is to provide better coverage of assets for when calls do come in. However I would argue forcing people to sit in a vehicle with no access to facilities is terrible for staff welfare and morale, which generally speaking isn’t great in emergency services anyway…..

how well does your service police the standby points ?

locally to me there's only one of the standby points that absolutely everyone goes to the correct standby point ( costa 5 yards one way ) big petrol station 10 yards t'other way

there's one that is supposed to be in the grounds of a hotel ( just a map pin) and that either ends up as the Maccies just down the road or the shopping centre car park across the road... ( all within 200 metres or so)

another one admittedly due to long term roadworks ends up as anywhere in roughly a mile radius of where it's supposed to be ( map pin by a fire station and a shopping parade ) in reality - ( supermarket 1, supermarket 2 / maccies , different Maccies or Training School )

standby has made a reappearance in this service but generally it;s first thing in the morning for day turns if the 6s and half 6s haven;t gone on a job by the time the 7s and half 7s start booking on

 

[sim667]

how well does your service police the standby points ?

locally to me there's only one of the standby points that absolutely everyone goes to the correct standby point ( costa 5 yards one way ) big petrol station 10 yards t'other way

there's one that is supposed to be in the grounds of a hotel ( just a map pin) and that either ends up as the Maccies just down the road or the shopping centre car park across the road... ( all within 200 metres or so)

another one admittedly due to long term roadworks ends up as anywhere in roughly a mile radius of where it's supposed to be ( map pin by a fire station and a shopping parade ) in reality - ( supermarket 1, supermarket 2 / maccies , different Maccies or Training School )

standby has made a reappearance in this service but generally it;s first thing in the morning for day turns if the 6s and half 6s haven;t gone on a job by the time the 7s and half 7s start booking on

Not well. But regardless the standby points where I am are out in the middle of nowhere except one of them. They’re a complete waste of time.

 

[sim667]

You Appear to be trying to put words in my mouth. Attending is not 'a break' although a couple of days chaffeuring an NQP who isn't yet a driver might be informative to a view on the cognitive load that 'not attending' can lead to

my point about driving is that the actual 'wheels turning' driving time in a 12 hour shift can be as little as couple of hours each and probably will amount for at most 4 hours each if you are both drivers ( even better if you have 3rd hand who is driver as well) that said a 45 -60 minute blues run is absolutely knackering doubly so when ita PPCI / HASU /Major trauma run

if you are clearing from jobs before you have completed paperwork and choose not to seek time to deal with Safeguarding or IR1s then that is your call, certainly in services i am aware of a response to dispatch or the tac cell asking why you are not yet clear of ' finishing paperwork becasue was having to do stuff / reassure the patient all the way in ' will get you at least 15-30 minutes grace over your 15 minutes post handover period, and doing a full safeguarding referral is likely to get you the response of ' do you need to return to (a) station' ? and that is even with the Cat 2 pressures...

As for breaks in the vehicle , that is a no-no ( even with coolbags / cab fridges) , but I suspect that the aim of the trust is to 'compromise' that breaks will be taken at the closest Station/Hub ( or at 'high quality' , i.e. with facilities and a crewroom , standby point ) rather than returning you to your sign on location / base station for that shift, as in some trusts RTB for break turns a 30 minute break ( and theunavoidable downtime associated with that) into well over an hour, but at least it gets you back to your dispatch area...

We don’t get time to finish paperwork post job, we have to get it done within a time frame, or explain why we need the extra time to get permission for it.

I didn’t say you said “attending” was a break, I said you’re suggesting time sitting in the attending seat (I.e. being driven to a job) is a break……. No need to get defensive.

 

[InArduisFouette]

We don’t get time to finish paperwork post job, we have to get it done within a time frame, or explain why we need the extra time to get permission for it.

I didn’t say you said “attending” was a break, I said you’re suggesting time sitting in the attending seat (I.e. being driven to a job) is a break……. No need to get defensive.

It's not much a matter of getting 'permission' where i am , but if you had a long transport , a delayed handover and relatively stable patient questions would be asked and you might get a 'check -in' from the duty commander/ Tac cell / biscuit desk rather quicker than ... a very poorly patient or a moderately poorly patient just round the corner from hospital and a timely arrival + handover ... where needing an extra 15 minutes post handover might be very easily justified.


when people make comparisions to drivers hours and breaks and ambulance crews it's as you well know rather more nuanced...

 

[sim667]

when people make comparisions to drivers hours and breaks and ambulance crews it's as you well know rather more nuanced...

Which was my point……