MORE than 300 healthcare support staff have voted to strike over a NHS trust’s failure to compensate them for the years spent working above their pay grade, Unison said today.

An overwhelming 96 per cent of the workers at East Suffolk and North Essex NHS Foundation Trust (ESNEFT)  backed strike action in a formal ballot.

ESNEFT had agreed to move them from band 2 to 3 of the NHS Agenda for Change pay scale as they had been regularly undertaking clinical tasks above their pay grade.