Revealed: Just 40 NHS trusts employ 115 diversity officers
... and Javid says: Let’s start axing them
SAJId Javid has ordered the NHS to cut its ‘diversity and inclusion’ managers – saying their salaries could be better spent on the front line.
As he promised the biggest shake-up of health service leadership in a generation, the Health Secretary vowed to be ‘watchful of any waste or wokery’.
He is demanding that bosses divert the salaries of up to £115,000 to patient priorities, such as tackling a record waiting list of 6.4million people.
The number of diversity and inclusion jobs within the NHS has soared by nearly 50 per cent in the last year, with some hospital trusts doubling the size of their teams, a daily Mail audit shows.
One advert for a £53,000-a-year
‘Watchful of waste and wokery’
equality, diversity and inclusion manager position at Harrogate and district NHS Foundation Trust, in North Yorkshire, says the role’s purpose is to ensure ‘all our colleagues, patients and visitors feel that they can be who they are and bring their whole selves to work and whilst receiving care’.
But critics argue trusts would be better focusing efforts elsewhere.
It comes after some expressed fears that an annual £12billion funding boost – raised through a 1.25 per cent National Insurance hike will be swallowed by management salaries.
The number of NHS executives earning at least £250,000 a year rose by more than 50 per cent last year, with more than 1,000 senior managers on at least £130,000.
Mr Javid said: ‘ There are already far too many roles focused solely on diversity and inclusion, and at a time when our constituents are facing real pressures around cost of living, we must spend every penny on patients’ priorities. It should be the responsibility of everyone to encourage fairness and equality of opportunity which is why we must reduce the number of these roles.’
More than 400 diversity managers could now be working in NHS hospitals, costing taxpayers as much as £12million a year, the Mail’s research suggests. There is no central tally of the jobs, but the audit of more than 40 acute trusts across England found 115 staff are now employed in roles covering ‘equality, diversity and inclusion’, up from just 78 a year earlier.
Not all the hospitals that responded to FOI requests – about one in four of the country’s total – provided information about pay. But the annual salary bill for diversity managers among those that did stands at £3million for the current financial year. Nine of the trusts said they had plans to expand their teams further. At Sheffield Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust and Gloucestershire Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, equality teams had doubled in size in just a year.
It comes as a landmark review into health and social care leadership, led by Sir Gordon Messenger, is published today. It makes seven recommendations, accepted by Mr Javid, aimed at improving management, making jobs more attractive to bosses and delivering value for money.
One recommendation says the NHS should ‘embed inclusive leadership practice as the responsibility of all leaders’.
John O’Connell, chief executive of the TaxPayers’ Alliance, last night backed Mr Javid’s demands, saying: ‘Taxpayers are sick of seeing NHS diversity demagogues on sky-high salaries.’ And Sir Gordon added: ‘A well-led, motivated, valued, collaborative, inclusive, resilient workforce is the key to better patient and public health outcomes, and must be a priority.’
LOSER’S consent – graciously accepting the result of a free and fair vote, no matter how vehemently you might disagree with it – is essential to a functioning democracy.
Troublingly, however, some in British politics seem to believe this noble concept can be disregarded on a whim.
After the EU referendum, irreconcilable Remainers strove (indeed, still strive) to overturn Brexit by hook or by crook.
Now, another instance of such unsavoury antics. While Boris Johnson’s victory in Monday’s no- confidence vote means he cannot be challenged for a year, a gaggle of Tory mutineers are petulantly vowing to topple him all the same. What right have these political pygmies to refuse to abide by the expressed will of the majority?
If their coup succeeded, it would be one of the most grievous acts of self-harm witnessed in Westminster for a very long time.
Only 30 months ago Boris, by sheer force of personality, broke the logjam of a paralysed, Remainer- dominated parliament and gave the Tories their biggest majority in a generation.
Do these disloyal, ungrateful plotters really know better than the 14million who voted for him? If they embark on a guerrilla war to turf him out it will be abundantly clear they are devoid of principles (stand up, Jeremy Hunt) and nothing more than self-serving narcissists (take a bow, David Davis).
No, the anti- Johnson gang have had their moment. If they have an iota of integrity, they will take a deep breath and unite behind the Prime Minister.
Of course, Partygate was a scandal. But Tory MPs should not be spooked by the tsunami of outrage on 24-hour news.
For months, the PM has been ceaselessly and savagely attacked by a shamelessly biased broadcast media. Yet the party only just trails Labour in the polls.
Mr Johnson has undoubtedly been badly damaged by the rebellion.
But the Daily Mail fervently believes he can rise to the monumental challenges facing the country. After all, in No 10 he has played a fiendishly difficult hand well, dealing with Brexit, Covid and the response to the Ukraine war.
Step one, though, is returning to the Tory values on which he was elected.
His promise to cut the eye-popping tax burden, to help grow the economy and ease the cost of living for families, is a welcome start. Just get on with it, PM.
He must also begin to fulfil his promises to deport Channel migrants, secure our energy supply and build more homes to give the young a stake in capitalism. Boosterish rhetoric must be matched by reality.
That is how the Tories can win the next election – and ward off Sir Keir Starmer’s ruinous socialist peril.