There have been many discussions about the working the in public sector compared to the private sector. I shall share my experiences of both in the last 12 months.

I left the ambulance service at the end of June last year to work for Capita, doing disability assessments for the PIP benefit. I left the service after 24 years' service, 18 years as a paramedic. Initially I was treated with respect as a health care professional. After successfully completing the training, I started working in the role from August last year.

I was contracted to work in my home postcode area, based from home and doing assessments at the claimant homes and writing the reports from home. I was paid full travel expenses for my role and was contracted to undertake 3 assessments a day (each assessment takes an hour to complete and a further hour to write the full report).

In September the work load was increased to 4 assessments a day to help clear the backlog in the system. I did not mind this as I was being paid good bonuses for doing this. But this meant working 60 hours a week, 7 days a week for the next 4 months. By Christmas we had cleared the backlog and I was looking forward to working a normal pace again.

In January Capita set up a telephone conference call for all the disability assessors in the country. I was expected to be congratulated for my efforts, as the company had secured the contract, they had avoided a £20 million fine and were given a £4 million bonus by the government. The call was a recorded telephone message to say that the company was changing its business model and all assessors would be made redundant and a new position was being created, but not all current staff would be kept on. This was only one step up from receiving a redundancy notice by text message.

They then ripped up our terms and conditions and the new ones were significantly worse. Many quit at that time, but I stayed to see how it affected me.

I then found that with the loss in expenses and additional travelling costs my take home pay fell by 20%. I found myself in a position where I was financing the company's' business costs through my pay. An example being that I was sent from my home in north Gwent to the English side of the Chepstow border to do 3 assessments. I travelled 90 plus miles on their business and I was paid only £1.60 in travel expenses.

They gave me a working schedule which was impossible to complete in my working hours, forcing me to work unpaid overtime or allow my work to fall behind. I tried keeping up with the work but this meant working 7 days a week again. I have brought this up with the management but this did not change anything.

I had reached the point where I cannot continue working for them and have resigned and I will be going back to work as a paramedic again.

I believe that they deliberately over subscribed for the position to clear the backlog, knowing that they could get rid of the excess staff by making the role redundant. They then used this as an excuse to rip up our terms and conditions, as no one had been in the role for more than 18 months.

This is now affecting the PIP programme as they are now short of staff and overtime is now on permanent offer and recruitment has to start again. This will be even more acute when the changeover from DLA to PIP takes place later this year. Unfortunately for Capita their reputation among heath care professional has now been severely tarnished and they will struggle to recruit capable staff for this role.

I feel relieved to be heading back to the public sector.