Hi, I find myself in a difficult situation. I was diagnosed with sleep apnea 10 years ago and then issued with a cpap device. I was never told at the time by my Gp who referred me or by the hospital consultant that I had to report this directly to dvla. I assumed as it was controlled everything was ok. Recently I had an issue with sleep apnea being uncontrolled. my machine had a problem which has been replaced with one that wirelessly reports data to the hospital. They say sleep apnea is now controlled again. So far so good, again no mention of Dvla. Recently though going through a complaint with my GP (different matter) who referred me to the sleep clinic, its been said about reporting my condition to DVLA. Im now worried after 10 years of not reporting I'm in deep hot water. Any advice on how to tackle this? Im hearing horror stories of DVLA revoking licences etc. I will be ringing the sleep clinic at my hospital tomorrow to get some kind of evidence of my current machine readings to prove the condition is controlled.

Hi. Just needed some advice. I currently work in the care industry. At our place we do sleep ins as our clients need 24 hour care. A letter was written complaining that in light of recent rulings regarding sleep in pay, the employer was underpaying us under the national minimum wage. This was discussed in our staff meeting with all the staff names typed on it. The area manager wanted to know who sent it. They were very dismissive of the letter. The area manager commented on the poor way it was written. They wrote directly to the individual concerned saying they would look into it. As per company procedure, they failed to respond within the 10 working days. In fear of being singled out and the effects it could have, an anonymous letter was sent to the company. It stated that they had broken the law by not paying the minimum wage. It also said we should have been paid the full amount from the end of July. It requested that a response had to be made in 14 days on how they were going to address the back pay. It also expressed concerns of what may happen to the sleep ins and how it could affect our residents. Whilst not everyone saw the letter before it was sent, then the manager has shown the staff since. Whilst some did not give their consent, all agree, including the manager that the contents were right. Our concerns were over the monies owed to us prior to the 27th July 2017, the monies due since then and proposed changes to our sleep-in arrangements. This also include our residents would not be covered. We wrote this as we feared our jobs if HR found out. 1) The company tried to find out who wrote the letter. They got all the staff to sign if they knew anything about the letter and did they give authorisation. Most of us signed we did not in order to protect our identities, but we all signed “but we agree with the contents”. We all felt the company was more focused on who wrote it, rather than address the issues. 2) Over the last few days, they have called us all in individually after the company had an emergency manager meeting. We were all told verbally that the company has until March 2019 to pay. In addition, they said that they would be waiting for an appeal due in March over sleep in pay. From what we have understood, the ruling regarding back dated pay by the inland revenue only applies to pay owed up to the 27th July 2017. Normal enforcement by HMRC applies for pay after this date. A number of care companies already pay the correct amount, but the company still only pay £35 for a 9.5/ 10 hour sleep in. We are often up during the night and rarely get any extra. 3) We were all told verbally that the company may have to consider closures if this is pursued. We all felt that this was delivered in a threatening manner. 4) In terms of moving forward, they have proposed that our sleep ins will change to on call. We were told we could leave the premises at night and come back, but we must be able to return to the premises within 10 minutes (Nobody lives within 10 minutes). It would be monitored and anyone arriving later will have their contracts terminated. In addition, we asked if all the staff leave the premises, what would happen. We were told someone would have to stay and cover. In other words, we all feel they are trying to avoid their legal obligations and have shown no interest in any ideas or other ways that can address this issue. Most of us feel that the company is trying to take advantage of some of our foreign workers who are too afraid to upset the company. This was given verbally and they wanted us to sign that we had a supervision over this issue. We have also checked our contracts. We have noticed that training is also not paid. Training is a requirement by CQC and other care authorities. All staff must have certain training. This also, we feel is breaking the rules on the minimum wage. Any advice would be appreciated.

Hi there. I have been in my new job as a support worker for a well known, national care company since May of this year. I support people with physical and learning disabilities. My job requires me to occasionally take "sleep-in" night shifts. The sleep-in shift begins at 22:00 and ends at 07:00, but most employees then do another full or half day shift. For a sleep-in, the employee is provided with a single bedroom (which is incredibly dirty and untidy with mess/equipment everywhere I might add!) with no entertainment facilities, e.g. a TV. For the duration of the sleep-in night shift, the employee is forbidden to leave the building and must be physically present, on site, at all times in case of an emergency requiring them to wake up and lend a hand to the waking night staff. The employee must clock in at the start of the sleep-in shift, as they would on any other type of shift, and of course clock out. For this 9 hour shift, the payment is only a single £35.00 amount, but if the employer is called upon during the night and woken up, they are paid their standard rate of pay for each hour they are awake (which is £6.64/hour for me). In reality, 99.99% of the time, the sleep-in staff are never woken up. The only part of my employment contract which specifically mentions sleep-in shifts, is the "Pay" section, which states "Your rate of pay for each sleep-in worked is £35.00. This payment is for 'on-call' services only." This equates to £3.88 per hour, for a 9 hour sleep-in night shift. Subscription to Unison is an unmanageable expense at the moment, given the cost of living and my current wages, so what is the most effective way to deal with securing the minimum wage (at least!) for sleep-in shifts. Any advice is very welcome. Thanks for reading.

So I had an email from Experian earlier tonight (I have their Credit Expert thingie), and I have just found out that I have a CCJ against me from the start of December, which must have been issued to my old address... So, let me explain. I have a total of around £27k of debts, £25k from old credit cards (Egg/Barclaycard and Co-operative Bank), 1K taxman and 1K lloyds "overdraft" (Who i continue to bank with as a current account only). The cards are all from around 3-4 years ago. All in my name, all caused by My Ex. - However I do realise i am liable for these debts. Anyhow, When I moved out, all were advised by telephone of my new address/info, and i indeed have demands from previous collection companies (for the two cards anyhow) to this address. However it seems like the court documents sent to my old address, and I was completely unaware of this until now. Now i find i have a CCJ and i dont know what i can do. I live on my own, and whilst i get a decent salary, the CSA also deduct lots of money at source for my children (Around 35% of my salary), so I have very little money to live on. I have possessions in the house that i REALLY don't want to loose (having been divorced once, with another pending, I have had to rebuild from scratch twice with the help from money lent to me by my great parents). I live in fear of the bailiffs coming around and taking what I have. It also seems that as part of the CCJ, the amount owing on this one card (previously £13k) has now jumped to £18k.... Seems to have happened just before the court case i wasnt aware of..... I dont know what to do, or where to go to get this sorted out - All i know is that i'll hapilly pay what i can, however because of the size of the debt i doubt it will be enough. I stuck my head in the sand as all I was getting was harassing post and phone calls DAILY to both my home and work numbers I cant sleep since finding all this out, hence my posting at 2:15am I'm so scared Please could someone advise me what i can do Thanks Paul

I have just seen on TV that it is an offence (£1,000 fine) not to notify DVLA of a new address. I have been looking into this as I moved over two years ago and just haven’t gotten round to doing so. During my enquiries online I also came across medical problems that should be reported to the DVLA, one of them is sleep apnoea which I have suffered from for years. I’m now really worried that if I apply to change my address and also notify the sleep apnoea I will get into terrible trouble for not reporting this medical condition earlier, and it looks like I should have told my motor insurers too so that is probably invalid too. I am disabled so need a car to get around. Does anyone have any experience /know the consequences of this at all please? I’m desperately worried and scared I may end up going to court or something. Thanks in advance.

night night sleepy heads ha ha ha busy day tomorrow

Hi all, If I can't sleep I think about the Universe and how vast it is. For example, the Voyager 1 space probe (launched in 1977) is now over 11 billion miles from Earth, but hasn't left our Solar System yet! The Milky Way Galaxy is 100,000 light years across. A light year is the distance light travels in one year, at 186,000 miles a second. Keep thinking about numbers like that, and your mind will be completely boggled. It puts me to sleep when that happens, so may work for you too.

Hi all,Hoping somebody may have some experience in dealing with dreams.I have had a Zen Refresh Mattress with a memory foam topper for about 7 weeks now and one side there is a horrible dip and it is very uncomfortable to sleep on at the moment. It basically does not return to shape.Dreams sent somebody around to look at it and he said that is normal and that you have to allow for dips of 3.5cm and this dip was only 2.5cm so it was withing the threshold and therefore nothing to repair.Problem is it is very uncomfortable and who decides these thresholds? What options do I have? Is it worth pursuing this?Also Dreams provide no email addresses to complain to and they do not call back when you send them a message. Anyone have a complaints department contact details?I am willing to pursue this as the mattress was more than £800 and it is uncomfortable within 6 weeks...and also I have taken out the added warrenty too.Any help would be appreciated.