The middle grade rotas I worked on in New Zealand 13 years ago always had a person allocated as the "short notice sick relief" on any given day. Usually they were on a 9-5 shift and there was no argument about what to do if someone called in sick.
We could choose to do the same in the UK. The challenge would be what to do in case of a rota gap (which is not by definition an unforeseen, short notice problem). I struggle to believe that the "short notice reliever" wouldn't have the gap foisted upon them on every cycle of the rota.
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Re: Ethics of the on-call rota
The middle grade rotas I worked on in New Zealand 13 years ago always had a person allocated as the "short notice sick relief" on any given day. Usually they were on a 9-5 shift and there was no argument about what to do if someone called in sick.
We could choose to do the same in the UK. The challenge would be what to do in case of a rota gap (which is not by definition an unforeseen, short notice problem). I struggle to believe that the "short notice reliever" wouldn't have the gap foisted upon them on every cycle of the rota.
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