12 HOUR SHIFT

12 hour Shift

12 hour Shift

Introduction

A growing number of hospitals have stopped scheduling nurses for extra-long shifts -- those of up to 16 hours -- amid growing national concern that exhausted healthcare workers are more prone to errors. In an industry where long hours have been the norm, new research and a recent government report have motivated hospitals to scrutinize nurses' hours, especially since patients are sicker than they used to be and demand more of nurses. Many hospitals and nursing homes are endangering patients by allowing or requiring nurses to work more than 12 hours a day, according to a report commissioned by the US government. Long hours cause fatigue, reduce productivity, and increase the risk that the nurses will make mistakes that harm patients. (Debora Ritz Mary Dugan 1990)

Debora Ritz Mary Dugan (1990) reported that a key area of enterprise-based negotiations is in relation to work-time. Evidence of organisations moving to 12-hour shift arrangements has been identified. The reasons for the move to extended shifts of 12 hours centre on a drive for increased productivity. Although there are long-standing concerns over the occupational health and safety effects of longer daily hours of work, the evidence is ambiguous, with advantages and disadvantages reflected in studies. The deleterious effects of working long hours is still a matter of research interest as attention turns to identify variables associated with negative outcomes. Examples of such ill-effects include job dissatisfaction, off-the-job accidents, stress and a range of disruptions to personal life. Of interest and relevance to this study is the growing concern from different sections of the working community regarding problems associated with negotiating these changes. Of particular concern are issues concerning productivity, efficiency, and the quality of working life. (Bambra Whitehead Sowden Petticrew 2008 )

Summaries

There are three types of shiftwork patterns, classified as permanent, rotating or continuous/ discontinuous.

The shifts reported on in this paper are 12-hour shifts, that operated on a rotating system between day and night, allowing consecutive days or weeks on and off work at a time. Workers therefore rotated, or moved, between day and night shifts. These shifts are predominantly compressed shifts, with three being of the extended type. Compressed shifts refer to an average of around 40 hours per week worked in fewer days across a roster cycle. In such a case the time worked and the time off work is approximately symmetrical. Extended shifts, on the other hand, refer to where the time worked and time off is not symmetrical and more shifts are worked than is allocated in time off. In such a case, instead of compressing the hours into fewer days worked, both longer days and longer average weeks are worked without being offset with time off.

Kathryn Sarah McGettrick and M Anna O'Neill, 2006, in Critical care nurses perceptions of 12-h shifts Twelve-hour shifts have been showed in the publications as being a highly contentious shift pattern. This study directed to extract critical care nurses' insights of employed 12-h ...