A fond farewell to Helen

Last week we all bade a fond farewell to Helen, NRAS Membership Manager and one of our longest serving members of staff. I have worked alongside Helen since she joined NRAS back in 2004 when NRAS was still very new and we were working from Ailsa’s home.

From the very beginning it was very clear what an asset she would be to the charity and on a personal level what a fantastic person she would be to work with. Over the years she has played a major part in many of the areas of the charity and in recent years, as the charity has grown, she has become more focussed on membership and on improving the services for our Members as well as playing a very important role in the helpline team and, very importantly, our in-house database consultant!

Helen’s warm and friendly manner and very intelligent handling of difficult calls and issues will be very much missed by members and of course, by all of the NRAS staff. We all wish her every success in the future and hope that she will not be a stranger. NRAS will not be the same without her!

On the helpline we are getting an increasing number of calls about the ESA (Employment Support Allowance) most of it unfortunately from very dissatisfied and upset callers who feel that the assessors are not taking into consideration the effects of long term pain, fatigue and the unpredictability of their RA. We are conscious of other charities who have been hearing very similar stories and the recent news coverage indicates that this is becoming a major issue which needs to be addressed. We realise with an election on the way it may be difficult to get our voice heard at the moment but we will be doing our best to ensure that after the election this is one of our main campaigning targets. If you have had any experience of the ESA process, good or bad, then I would love to hear from you, please email me on helpline@nras.org.uk

Lorraine Tanner
Helpline Manager