Claire Wells

“My story is about being a Tuped staff member and lack of pay rises. I was employed initially as a healthcare assistant in 1995, working with adults who have learning disabilities and mental health issues in a small community-based setting.

I am NVQ Leval 3 qualified and worked up to the top of band 3 on pay structure, and through agenda for change, I do get additional pay for any unsocial hours worked.

However the NHS put us out to tender in 2006, due to a government white paper coming into play, during this transition period our job titles changed to a community support worker, but we were expected to increase our workloads which included giving out medication, finances, increase in amount of paper work to complete, we have less time to spend with people we support.

My workload has increased but the wages I get do not reflect this, one pay rise since being tuped, if I was still a HCA with less responsibility I would get significantly more wages.

I feel that I do not get recognised for my 26 years of service within my pay. At the moment on long-term sick and find it really hard to make ends meet as not being paid correctly for being off.”