Carer worked 70-hour weeks for below minimum wage

Poling Choi said she worked well over shift

A woman who worked 70 hours a week as a carer said she made less than the minimum wage due to not being properly compensated for travel time.

Poling Choi, from Warwickshire, said she regularly was not paid the HMRC rate for her travel time between patients and also worked well over shift.

She said: "Your employer is the only party that can pay you mileage and it's their choice if they choose to pay you 30p, 20p, that's up to them."

A spokesperson for the government said: "Travel time between appointments counts as work time for minimum wage purposes."

An underpayment analysis report by the website Fairercarerpay.co.uk found that 71.8% of care workers were underpaid between April 2022 and September 2025.

The report calculated the average shortfall in wages was £2.51 per hour, which meant full-time employees were losing more than £100 a week.

Ms Choi said: "Sometimes it would be back-to-back and we'd have no travel time and you've not had time to eat or sometimes to go to the toilet and it is problematic.

"I was doing 60-70 hour weeks. My first call was 8:15am and my last call was supposed to finish at 10pm, but there's no way I would finish on time."

Ms Choi is now working for a new employer

Ms Choi is now working for a new employer and is being paid correctly.

Dan Archer, director of the National Association of Care and Support Workers, is calling on the government to do more to hold employers to account.

He said: "For the domiciliary care space, that workforce is 800,000 people strong. If 71% of them have been financially abused, that's over half a million people who are being paid illegally.

"So it's got to be a case that government needs to put more effort into compliance to ensure that employers are actually meeting their obligations."

A government spokesperson said: "While most responsible businesses get it right and pay the correct minimum wage, we will take action against those that don't to ensure workers receive what they are legally entitled to."