Christine Elliott, Unison steward
I work in an NHS Trust call centre, receiving and triaging calls to a number of community services, including district nursing, therapies, palliative care, urgent community response, hospital at home, and other services.
Following a service redesign in June 2022, which significantly added to our duties, we submitted a request for a review of our job description, with the full support of our general manager. We were of the opinion that we had been working at a higher band that that at which we were being paid (Band 2) for some considerable time. This was our opportunity to rectify the wrong.
Our team were united in the belief that we deserved fair pay for a fair day’s work, and with union membership at close to 86%, what did we have to lose? Nothing ventured, nothing gained.
What followed was a four-year battle against senior management, the human resources department and, incredulously, staff-side representatives.
Seven months after submission of our original request for re-evaluation, we were finally told that senior management had not progressed our request, deeming unilaterally that we were not worthy of a band uplift. This was not their decision to take – as they would find out.
We immediately submitted a grievance, which was upheld and a job evaluation panel was finally convened. We were notified of the outcome of that panel just days before Christmas 2023. It was not the news we were hoping for. There was to be no change to our salary banding.
We challenged the outcome. Eventually a further independent panel assessment of our job description took place with an outcome of a Band 3. The Trust, however, overruled the decision, claiming the job profile we had been matched against was incorrect.
Once again, we protested this outcome, taking our case nationally to the NHS Staff Council Job Evaluation Group, which recommended that a second independent panel took place.
Finally, in March this year, we received the news we had been waiting for: the second independent panel had awarded us a Band 3. Only last week, we concluded negotiations for back pay from the date of our original job evaluation submission, just short of four years from the beginning of our journey.
Lessons learned: management, HR and sometimes even staff-side are not your friends. Believe nothing, question everything. Be patient. Don’t give up!
