NHS bosses set to spend £1million on diversity roles amid crippling strikes
NHS bosses have advertised more than £1million worth of diversity and sustainability jobs this year.
Nineteen so-called “non-jobs” are on offer — as the health service has been crippled by a month of strikes.
Pay ranges from around £20,000 to £88,364 per year for the Equality and Diversity Lead at Health Education England.
Ministers last year pledged to cut back on the roles and put more money to patient priorities.
But John O’Connell, chief executive of The TaxPayers’ Alliance, which carried out the analysis, said the huge sums suggest the NHS’s “New Year’s resolution has been abandoned”.
He told The Sun: “Taxpayers are sick to the back teeth of NHS non-jobs. Time for health chiefs to focus funds on the frontline.”
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No 10 announced plans to reduce diversity officers last June, when then-Health Secretary Sajid Javid said there were too many roles focused solely on diversity and inclusion.
More than 800 diversity officers were employed by the health service last year. The new jobs have been listed since January 5, one day before the first nurses’ strike.
Despite tensions and pay rows, the NHS advertised 13 diversity and sustainability roles that are paid more than the £33,000 a year earned by the average nurse.
They include an Associate Director for People Development and Inclusion job in Dorset that pays up to £77,274.
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The job advert, posted on January 11, lists overseeing “wellbeing, equality and inclusion” as a duty.
Another, the head of lived experience and involvement at a trust in Yorkshire, offers up to £65,000.
Chris Snowdon, at the Institute of Economic Affairs, told The Sun: “The NHS has far fewer doctors per 1,000 people than most EU countries and has half as many hospital beds, but it seems to have an unlimited budget for Net Zero managers and Equality and Diversity officers.
“One million pounds isn’t a great deal in the context of the £200billion the NHS burns through every year, but it is just the tip of the iceberg of wasteful spending by an organisation that claims to be short of cash.”
An NHS spokesman said: “While it is down to individual Trusts to decide how to support their own staff, NHS England is reducing the number of job posts by up to 40 per cent.
“The NHS is one of the most efficient health services in the world, spending a far lower proportion on administration costs than comparable countries.”