Running Late

We have apps 9am-12.30 and 2-5pm. I go in work every day and 8.35 (and we are told we have to be in surgery by 8.45 as the 15mins to set up is taken from our lunch hour meaning we get 45mins. We regularly run late or up until 12.55 which means we never get our full lunch. We then always run late after 5pm meaning I sometimes have 10 mins to close down surgery- when theres only 1 nurse its impossible to clean down, do instruments, get ready for next day, change bins, do suction units etc. So I run late. We have never even been offered over time- sometimes I don't leave until 6pm. Running late and only having 45mins lunch is joke when you don't get it and technically illegal. I just don't feel like it can be brought up without it being awkward as we are a one dentist practice.

This topic makes me sad, cos even though a lot of you guys still have problems with this, it seems there is at least some acknowledgement from your practice that it takes time to shut down the surgery/decon room. At my practice we don't get any time allocated to either setting up in the morning, or shutting down at night, not one single minute. The last patient is booked in until say, 6pm, and the practice shuts at 6pm.

Also, very few of the nurses have keys to lock up the practice, so there will often be a keyholder (such as the Practice Manager) will be waiting on you to finish shutting down, so they can lock up and go home. It's very rushed and pressurized.

Our dentist's also do "on the spot" treatments and we often go over time which means shut down goes past our finish time. However each nurse has a notebook to log this time in and we take it back as and when we can. Eg. If a pt c/a end of session you close down and take time back, the dentist signs our book for the amount of time taken. This can also work to have an extended lunch if you want it, provided there are others to cover or if you have had cancellations. If time builds up, we have been known to take half days of time owing if a dentist is off etc. It works ok as long as you don't want to take time and leave your practice short staffed.

Having read through all of these posts I'm shocked that there are nurse's out there completely being taken advantage of
I would no way put up with not being paid overtime, that's completely unfair. Especially when it's the dentist who runs behind, not you!! *This subject makes me really mad.....rant coming
At my old practice we had a dentist who constantly did fillings on a 10min Ex and ran very behind every single day. It became so stressful for the nurse that she was having panic attacks and one day said to the practice manager: "You move me or I leave...!" The manager felt I was the person who she should be swapped with! I went into that surgery dreading every minute. I cannot stand to run behind, for whatever reason....On the Friday, I finally plucked up the courage to say to him after he'd done yet ANOTHER filling on a 10min Ex: "You know, you didn't need to do that today....you have plenty of time for treatments to be booked in"....to which he said nothing...at the end of the day he said to me: "You know what you said to me earlier?".....I thought "Uh-oh, I'm in trouble..." he actually said: "I needed someone to tell me that"....from then on he was as good as gold!! Mostly because I'd give him the look as if to say "NO...!!!"
On the other hand, I'm totally aware that a lot of dentists would not take a nurse speaking to them like that....
I'm not sure what to suggest apart from telling them that its not fair that you are not paid to complete your job properly!! They'd be the first to complain if you up and left the minute your patient had gone without closing down properly...!!
We are given 15mins at the end of each session to close down our surgeries, obviously at the beginning of lunch there is much less to do, but at the end of the day it takes me a LEAST 30mins and I then put down my over time! We are on occasion questioned, which also makes me furious....I haven't personally been questioned yet but boy oh boy, when they do...
Rant over....sorry about that! I hope you get your problem resolved, and quickly!!

I have a suggestion, this is what I would do:

Every time you run late write down exactly how late you have run (So once you no longer get paid write those times down, be it 10minutes or 30minutes, write down the date, the times and who you were working with). Show this to whoever is in charge and tell them you would either like it paid or time back, if they refuse this tell them you are going to get legal advice as you should be getting paid for in.

I believe the dentist won't change, and if this is the case you can at least make sure you get paid what you are owed.

Hi again,

Thank you for your reply Hrussel, my apologies for misunderstanding your post with regards to me thinking you left your surgery at you finish time (I did wonder!) I was taking over at the end of the day but this stopped helping as occasionally there were multiple chairs still running so I couldn't take over from everyone and I got sick of being the late cover all the time if I'm honest.
I think its hard when you've got 5 or 6 juniors working and only 1 supervising consultant, I am now just having to take a tougher stand which is why we are auditing the late working. Totally agree though there are clinicians who take advantage hopefully I can reduce this!

Hi again,

I'd just like to say in response to Ekw's post. We never left a patient in the chair and just went home, God forbid. The lead nurse took over from us.
This was when I worked in the hospital system, we too never got paid for doing extra time but the amount of time we all had built up was into silly hours so this was why the lead nurse/head of the department made the stand.
Everything that any of the nurses did was with prior agreement and say so from her. She ran the unit very well and had the respect of everyone.

Running late is something that will always happen but I think at the same time there are some clinicians that take advantage.

Hi there

I think its the same everywhere really even in the hospital I'm in with long appts meaning fewer patients we still run late sometimes hugely over we are supposed to finish at 5pm but the latest I've left is 745! Not paid but we build time up and take when we can be covered. Its a topic always brought up at most meetings.
I think the issue with the comment from Hrussel is even though the result worked which is great, if you have a patient in the chair and your treating that patient could you really just get up and walk out because its your finish time? We do have a duty of care To our patients and even though its incredibly irritating I don't agree with leaving, also I'd end up in a disciplinary meeting!
What we are doing is auditing all nurses finishing times for a month. Also extending repeat offenders appt times and during treatment we give time checks so around 4pm I say its 4 so need to crack on need done for 445 and give 10min time checks itbugs them but it keeps the time in their heads. Maybe as a team ask what would work or your lead nurse could tell the clinicians if no improvement the last appt will be lost and the will have to finish earlier.

Hello,

Things never change do they? No matter where you work.

Our lead nurse always stuck by the words of "the girls are on till a certain time, if you go beyond that you will be without a nurse they will all be going home so you will have to fend for yourselves".

I can honestly say it worked, they did try it on a couple of times and she would come in to the surgery and say "ok it's time for you to go home" and that was it we would leave. The dentists soon realised that she meant every word.

It will take a strong lead nurse/practice manager to try and change it and be able to stick with it.

Hope you eventually manage to sort something for you all.

Hi
Just wondered how other dental nurses deal with surgery running late?

The practice I currently work at has 5 surgeries and an unmanned decontamination room.

Our diary is arranged to allow a 15 minute "catch up slot" during each session and 20 minutes "shutting down time" at the end of the day.
There is an issue with the dentists regularly running through the catch up and running over at the end of day.
Not usually due to planned treatment taking longer than expected which we all respect can happen. But due to telling the last examination patient of the day "we have time to do that filling for you now" at 5.45pm when the practice closes at 6pm!!

At the end of the day each nurse has to do the usual surgery shut down jobs in their own surgery, then all the nurses help to get the decontamination room shut down. We know that this is a part of the job, and take our responsibility seriously.

The outcome is that the nurses are regularly made to finish off in their own time (no overtime paid), and quite often feel that we have to start early in the morning to catch up with the backlog of instruments in the decontamination room from the previous day.

We discuss this problem at every staff meeting, the principal and the dentists acknowledge that we are unhappy about this, but it continues still. We now feel that our time and dedication is being abused, and undervalued. We are getting to the point where we may start walking out at 6pm but don't want patient care to suffer.
Any suggestions on how to deal with it??