Can I add On-call duties myself?

On-call duties are duties that you would complete as part of a rota, which may consist of predictable and unpredictable hours when you work. On-call duties can be recorded as Scheduled, Annualised or Non-scheduled or may be added to your job plan as part of a Priority Template.

To add an on-call activity: 

• Add and define the activity.
• Defined the schedule and select On-call hours versus Normal hours.

• When you select On-call hours there will be an additional definition for the Consultant, Specialist and Associate Specialist contracts but Agenda for Change contracts will need to select On-call hours. If the On-call category is displayed then you would need to define the expected intensity of the on-call – i.e. whether you have to return or provide advice immediately or whether it is less intense. Some Options may be preselected depending on the combination of Scheduled/Annualised/Non-scheduled work with On-call hours
• Complete the Timing section which has the same data requirements as any other activity. However, with on-call hours the start and end times are more likely to be out of hours or when your routine work finishes.  This is also likely to be an activity that runs overnight.

• Between 17:00-09:00 of this overnight activity you would be considered as On-call but you may not be working or providing much telephone support.  So, some rotas attract a Supplement only or a Supplement plus hours value. If you count the average hours of disruption per on-call the Agenda for Change employees will need to add the average number of hours but Consultant and Specialist/Associated Specialist doctors will need to add a little more detail regarding whether the hours occur in normal or premium time.
• The section concerning PA value is for Consultant/Specialist and Associate Specialist doctors so Agenda for Change staffing groups will only need to see and define the hours against the on-call.  You will be able to assign PA value in two ways. Days of the week calculates the occurrences and hours (if any) and provides an average PA value per week and Agreed PAs give you the flexibility to state your weekly PA value.  The Agreed PAs may be a value that has been in place by agreement with the doctors contributing to the rota or be a Value that has been calculated by the doctors completing a diary card exercise.  Once Agreed PAs has been selected there will be no further information required in the PA value section.
• The On-call payment is either Supplement only or Supplement plus hours. Unless you select Supplement plus hours you will not see any further fields to define.

• The rest of the PA value section is only relevant to Consultants, Specialists and Associate Specialists.  You will need to define any average hours that take part during this overnight activity and what portion of this would be at normal time or premium time.  For example, during a weekday overnight you may stay later than than routine finish time for 30 minutes and get “disturbed” for a total average of 2 hours during the rest of the overnight and this would be:
  1. 30 minutes in normal time – This may be referred to as Predictable and this can be scheduled as normal work rather than on-call. 
  2. 2 hours premium time – This may be referred to as Unpredictable 
• The Options will be selected by default. Because on-call is usually worked as part of a rota/roster you would be covering for your colleagues and visa version for holidays, annual leave and training.  This makes it a priority activity and should be protected but in most cases, you should deselect the Prospective cover activity selection.

NOTE: On-call may be added as part of a Priority Template and for any queries you will need to refer to your Manager or Administrator or review How to accept a Priority Template.