DICT8 Plus (new November 2022)

[Whitestar55]

Hi, Here we go again, anyone else set up a new thread yet? Hope to find everyone 🙂

@danblack87 yes I had the same message and I did include my address. However, I was not contacting him as my local MP, as he is not, but as the minister for Work and Pensions, for which this was the email contact given, there was not a different one.

@Gally123 As minister for work and pensions overall he should not just looking after the people of bloody Hexham. For all we know there maybe people working from bloody Hexham. Full of shit the Government.

@Gally123 So I just sent this in response to Guy Opperman's office:

Your reply is all well and good but this diabolical, outrageous exploitation affects the whole of the UK (not just where I live) so please point me in the right direction as to whom this e-mail should be addressed.

@danblack87 I think it might be better just to wait and see if he or his staff do reply, esp. if others such as @Whitestar55 also send an email to lend weight to the cause. Otherwise then you can email the shadow secretary for work and pensions or organisations like the BBC or newspapers.

@Chrissols not having any contact with that lot of militants in the NHS sounds perfect to me 😂

Today on my list the junior doctors sound bored to tears with their jobs and little effort is being made to construct a decent letter - poor patients !!!

@danblack87 why not get in contact with Daily Mail online or the like. They are always looking for news. Maybe point out the appalling way we are treated by the companies the NHS employees to do their backlog. After all the NHS is supposed to be a welcoming, kind, caring environment full of those who are there to uplift staff, not bully them etc !!!! Well one company does not adhere to that ethos even though it's run by a bunch of doctors !!! Point them in the direction of our thread they'd love it 😂

@Pinksville yes, me too. The only contact I really have with them is when I contact them, not vice versa.

I agree about the poor treatment of NHS staff. Experience and skill now counts for nothing. Trusts are run as self funding businesses with a ruthlessness that is shameful.

When I returned to the NHS after a break working from home, I was put in the typing pool on the bottom of band 3, despite having 20 + years of med sec experience (and a past clinical professional qualification) despite being one the most experienced secretaries and I was constantly helping out the less experienced and the ever changing new support secs, (some of whom were on a higher point in the banding than myself because they had dropped from a band 4 role that they had only been in for a few months, with little prior NHS experience) and I was expected to perform to a high standard that reflected my experience, but not my salary. This was when it took about 6 years to reach the top of the band.

I was penalised because I had left the NHS for a couple of years to work from home so I could look after my elderly mother, who lived with me for a while.

Applying for a band 4 role would have put me at the bottom of band 4, which at the time didn't even equate to the top of band 3 and the job was horrendous and many had moved on from it or retired.

I know they've changed the banding system now, but band 4 still takes 3 years to get to the top and there are two points for band 3, and band 2 has just one point and some support sec jobs have been dropped to band 2 in my locality.

In my opinion and experience the NHS is full of self-serving greedy individuals and if your face doesn't fit or you express a difference of opinion then you're out. It's a more political environment than the House of Commons. And getting ahead is not what you know but who you know. I have witnessed in my time in this awful cult good people being undermined and bullied out of their jobs by lesser individuals.

I am still seeking for someone to hear within Government. It seems I am mostly on my own on taking on this quest, which I endeavour to do, but I need more people in our arena to speak and out, not just myself. The more e-mails and letters received by Government gives a better chance of someone listening. I am doing this for everyone, not just myself, BUT seems, despite all the talk, no-one really wants to put themselves out their to make a stand (aside from a few). A lone wolf can't do it on their own ... they need solidarity as a pack. Whatever I do from now on I will not be posting any updates.

@danblack87 I can understand your frustration, if we were all in an office I feel sure you wouldn't feel so alone in what you are doing. I can assure you that I have trawled the internet, had legal advice via my insurance and all come to the same conclusion the self-employed do not have rights. There might be a case with DICT8 as you are forced into free labour by way of the note box and they demand you write lengthy explanations which in reality are not notes.

What we do does not meet all the criteria to be considered truly self-employed, and we are more likely contracted workers and should have better rates of pay that easily equate to minimum wage at least. I did report this to a (I think it was some union or other, I can't remember now) via an online form, that wanted to know about NHS contract workers who felt they were being unfairly treated and paid by an agency/intermediary compared to their NHS employee colleagues. I didn't get any feedback however, but at least I brought to their attention the plight of remote medical transcribers doing NHS work, as I think most people don't know we exist or what we actually do.

@Pinksville we don't have rights because the government have not given us any - people need to ask the minister responsible - I gave his email link earlier.

@danblack87 I agree, others do not really want higher pay or holiday or sick pay otherwise they would do something about it. If I get a reply from the minister I will let you know.

Hi fellow medical transcribers. I think that we are known as artificial, artificial workers or ghost workers. Have a Google, interesting read. Will it ever work 100% though? I think not for a while, especially skilled medical transcription?

Another option would be to go straight to the companies themselves and see if better conditions could be negotiated, let them know we are unhappy, and if that fails contact MPs. The Uber drivers actually had to go through the supreme court to get anywhere though unfortunately. I personally now have decided to vote with my feet regarding applying to any more pseudo-self-employment companies like T-pro, by not going there in the first place as I don't like the way those companies operate, plus I've had more than enough of typing like a lunatic all day. I'm looking for an employed, preferably WFH, position currently, as I feel I need the security. Even bank and agency work would offer better conditions.

@Whitestar55 bank and agency work is much better conditions as with bank you get a higher rate of pay to encompass holiday entitlement and with agency you accrue it so get paid leave. I think in the trust I work for bank staff are treat really well as they know we could just say ‘right, that’s me done, won’t be in again’, 😁. Plus, doing this, you can always keep Dict8 in the background should the need arise 😊

@Chrissols Thanks. I know., I have actually done agency and bank work in the past and preferred it for all those reasons.

I'm bank at a local private hospital and although the perks are not as good as an employed position I do get the higher rate to take into account holiday and sick pay plus a pension. I do this 3 days a week and dict8 2 days. Suits me as I can do dict8 or not with no hassle.

@Gally123 I agree, others do not really want higher pay or holiday or sick pay otherwise they would do something about it. If I get a reply from the minister I will let you know.

Thank you Gally123 I know you are invested in trying to get some conclusion to this matter and your help is invaluable. There are other too. We need more numbers of complaints/applications/e-mails/letters to make an impact.

Everyone has a moan and groan, we all do .. me included BUT, in today's climate, it is very important to find out exactly what we can do to address no pay rises across all sectors of outsourcing typing companies ... I am not targeting just one ... it includes them all!!!

@danblack87 I have emailed our local MP but last time I emailed the very same MP (about 18 months ago), they didn’t even reply.

We'd be better off emailing NHS Trusts and telling them we are available to work from home on the bank (or whatever you would like to do) providing a transcription service, and boycott these companies that are out to exploit us.

@Whitestar55 : I agree boycotting these intermediary companies is worth a try and I shall look into that too. The point remains that there are many 1,000's out there being exploited at the current time too AND that also needs to be investigated and eradicated.

@Whitestar55 my thoughts exactly.

@danblack87 I agree with you on that.