Equality and diversity staff are being hired on twice the salary of junior doctors by NHS trusts across the country.
Recent job postings offering roles across the service in equality, diversity and inclusion (EDI) suggest higher salaries than specialist junior doctors, reports The Times.
Junior doctors earn a basic salary of roughly between £36,600 and £70,420, However, there have been postings of a head of EDI role at a London trust with a salary of £91,336, and an NHS England EDI secondment position for the southwest of England offering a pro rata salary of £122,000.
It comes as Health Secretary Wes Streeting told reporters that "ideological hobby horses need to go" from within the NHS.
The NHS has been instructed to cut back on diversity schemes
Getty/PA
The North East London NHS trust’s integrated care board posted a job last month for a new head of equality, diversity and inclusion, on a salary of up to £91,336 a year.
Meanwhile, NHS England posted a job in December for an "associate dean with responsibility for equality, diversity and inclusion" in the southwest of England was advertised with a salary of £122,470 pro rata, equivalent to a senior consultant.
The role would entail the holder spending eight hours per week away from their core role to “explore and implement initiatives” around equality and diversity.
In 2023, then-Health Secretary Steve Barclay ordered the trust to stop recruiting for EDI jobs in 2023. His announcement came after uncovering a £96,000 job advert for a diversity role.
Barclay also told trusts to stop paying consultancies and external organisations to provide diversity training for staff.
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Health Secretary Wes Streeting warned that diversity drives in the health service have gone too farGB NEWS=
It comes after Streeting spoke out against "some really daft things being done in the name of equality, diversity and inclusion" which he claimed were pushing back its cause.
The Ilford North MP cited a post by Dr Florencia Gysbertha, a counselling psychologist at East London NHS Foundation Trust.
In the post, Dr Gysbertha called for counselling psychology trainees or psychotherapists in training to come forward for a placement in the NHS.
She said: "The trainee will be supervised by myself, a counselling psychologist, who integrates anti-whiteness/anti-racist praxis into supervision and approaches to clinical work."
Responding to the post, Streeting said: "I just thought: what the hell does that say to the bloke up in Wigan who’s more likely to die earlier than his more affluent white counterparts down in London? We’ve got real issues of inequality that affect white working-class people. The ideological hobby horses need to go."
East London NHS Foundation Trust, which employs Dr Gysbertha, told The Times the post "does not in any way represent the views, values or recruitment practices of the trust and this matter was addressed internally."
An NHS spokeswoman said the health service "needs to take action to reduce health inequalities" and that a "diverse and inclusive workforce that better reflects the patient population leads to improved patient care."
She added: "But equally we cannot make tokenistic gestures that don’t ultimately improve patient or staff experience — specialist roles and training to address equality, diversity, and inclusion should be focused on boosting staff retention and helping all NHS staff to be effective in their work."
The Department of Health and Social Care said: "Equality, diversity and inclusion initiatives should not be box-ticking or time-wasting exercises but should be targeted at tackling the very real health inequalities that exist in Britain today, and the need to tackle the bullying that BAME NHS staff face."
