Daily rest periods

Under the main WTR regulations a worker is entitled to a rest period of not less than 11 consecutive hours in each 24-hour period during which s/he works for the employer (WTR regulation 10). This can be varied only if there is a collective or workforce agreement that provides for alternative periods of compensatory breaks from work. Rest days are usually taken in addition to annual leave.

A young worker is entitled to a daily rest period of not less than 12 consecutive hours, although this may be “interrupted in the case of activities involving periods of work that are split up over the day or of short duration”.

There are significant exclusions from WTR daily rest requirements:

• Special case exclusions (see chapter 5) may remove this specified daily rest entitlement from a range of workers including those working offshore, in urban passenger transport, rail workers on board trains (as defined, see chapter 5) and doctors in training. Where rest is missed there would be an important entitlement to compensatory rest.

• Mobile workers covered by WTR are also excluded and are instead provided with an entitlement to an unspecified period or periods of adequate rest (see below).

• Doctors are covered by the WTR regulations but also have entitlements under the doctors’ New Deal agreement. Minimum time off between duties is eight hours (on-call rota 12 hours).