David Craig, on June 9th, 2023Friday/weekend blog
I have blogged several times about my astonishment at why our collapsing, supposedly cash-strapped NHS keeps on hiring ever more DIE (Diversity, Inclusion and Equality) staff.
I haven’t been able to find out how many of these (in my humble opinion) totally useless individuals are employed by the NHS (please note I did not write ‘work in the NHS’). I suspect that in the NHS England’s approximately 217 trusts there must be somewhere around 500 DIE staff costing us in the region of £100 million a year including their salaries, pensions, offices and frontline staff’s time they use up in seminars about the joys of diversity and LGBT++++ and other similarly important subjects.
However, I think I have managed to discover the cause of this DIE disease afflicting our NHS. It would seem that it is linked to something called the ‘Public Sector Equality Duty’ (PSED) produced by the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC):
https://www.equalityhumanrights.com/en/advice-and-guidance/public-sector-equality-duty
The PSED requires that: ‘in England, all public bodies should have published their equality information by 30 March 2023.They should have also published equality objectives, which should be specific, measurable and timely’. Furthermore, the Equality and Human Rights Commission warns that: ‘we will monitor compliance with the PSED specific duty requirements.’
The aim of this initiative is apparently to provide ‘services that are more appropriate to the user, and services that are more effective and cost-effective.’ And the EHRC claims ‘this can lead to increased satisfaction with public services.’
I won’t comment on whether most people have experienced ‘increased satisfaction with public services’ since the EHRC conjured up its wonderful PSED.
This policy may be well meaning. But it has led to the proliferation of a whole new species of public-sector employees – DIE managers and team leads and principal officers and others of their ilk and their assistants – being recruited to meet the demands of the PSED.
Here are some short extracts from three of the most recent DIE job ads posted by the NHS.
At Kettering Hospital Trust the £58,972 – £68,525 a year Senior Diversity and Inclusion Specialist: ‘will work as part of the Organisational Development (OD) and Equality Diversity and Inclusion (EDI) team and the key strategic lead for EDI, whilst also working operationally to support colleagues and leaders from across the Group to embed EDI in all aspects of service delivery. You will be the organisational lead for the Public Sector Equality Duty (PSED), associated action plans and a key influencer within our Health Inequalities work. You will lead a broad range of projects and developments as part of the Group’s ambition to be an inclusive employer where staff are empowered to make a difference. ‘
Let us hope that the medical staff at Kettering Hospital Trust taking part in the ‘broad range of projects’ to improve diversity, inclusion and equality also manage to find some time to look after the hospital’s patients.
At the Lincoln Community Health Services Trust: ‘The EDI assistant (£22,816 – £24,336 a year) provides a professional and high-quality customer focused service to the managers, staff, staff networks and other stakeholders. Providing support in the monitoring and administration of all aspects of the equality, diversity and inclusion agenda.’
Included in this vital individual’s work will be: ‘Set up meetings, facilitate arrangements for EDI celebration weeks and days (to include Black History Month, LGBT+ History Month, Carers week and International Women’s Day – list not inclusive, manage the Cultural Intelligence programme process, ordering and issuing relevant correspondence, responsible for maintaining stock control (CQ licences), as well as the Reverse Mentoring Programme admin – liaising between mentor/mentees.’
Quite what celebrating Black History Month, LGBT+ History and International Women’s Day have to do with getting ambulances to emergencies on time, cutting waiting lists and improving patient care escapes me for the moment.
Then there’s the East London NHS Foundation Trust which is hiring an Equality, Diversity and Inclusion People Participation Lead on £35,392 – £42,618 a year:
‘The post holder will work strategically across Trust services with a focus on Equality, Diversity, and Inclusion in order to develop and implement a strategy that supports the broad participation agenda. They will project manage a variety of work streams that underpin the Trust participation agenda, ensuring that practice in each locality is coordinated and supports and responds to the Trust’s corporate social inclusion strategies.’
‘They will provide strong leadership, advice and practical project work within EDI in the development of a culture that is socially inclusive, valves (sic) participation and diversity. Supporting and maintaining effective communication, contributing to the training needs of staff in this aspect of their work. The post holder will need to develop relationships with a wide range of stakeholders.’
‘Our mission is to make a positive difference to people’s lives by improving the quality of life for all we serve. Our values are: We Care, We Respect, We are Inclusive – so we are looking for people who live and breathe these qualities when supporting service users and carers, and in their relationships with colleagues in the Trust and our partner organisations.’
Some more old-fashioned readers might still believe that hiring people with a few decent medical skills could be more important to a member of the public having a heart attack or suffering from Stage 4 cancer than dreaming up well-paid non-jobs for ‘people who live and breathe these qualities’ of care, respect and inclusion.
So it seems that a bunch of useless bureaucrats at the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC), with plenty of time on their hands, invented this Public Sector Equality Duty (PSED) to make it look like they were doing some work. Of course, as part of the woke-ification of Britain, some of these DIE creatures would have been hired anyway. But the EHRC’s PSED has accelerated and increased the plague of DIE nonentities and has ended up costing the NHS tens of millions of pounds a year and probably similar amounts of our money throughout other government departments.
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Equality and Diversity are the worst ideas ever created. We are not equal in any way. The only way we could be equal is if we are equally stupid and incompetent. It is inequality that has produced everything we have. It is the same with diversity. The diversity we need is diversity of ideas but that is exactly the opposite of what the ideological fools want. The socialists, which is how I describe them, will not accept that some people should have more than others, but that is exactly how socialism ends – a few rich tyrants and the rest in absolute poverty.
The socialist NHS is a huge part of the problems we have because state control distorts all decision making. We should keep our money and spend it as we want and suffer the consequences of unwise decisions. Because we don’t have to pay directly for health care we view entertainment and holidays as more important. If any activities have created environmental damage it is all our travelling. Look what it has done to the Spanish coast. Look at all the meaningless jobs it has created.
On a different topic did you see Freddie Sayers interviewing Richard Dawkins? I thought the first part was sensible. He talked about science being the only way to the truth but what he did not mention, which is a point I have been raising, is how do we know what is the truth? How can we have physicists preaching invalid atmospheric physics and with little criticism? Where are all the Nobel Laureates? He didn’t say anything about this. But finally he was asked about the covid pandemic and contradicted everything he had previously said about the importance of science. What hope is there for the future?
For Diversity, Inclusion and Equality read Discrimination, intolerance and Exclusion particularly if you’re white and heterosexual.
DIE staff are simply Political Commissars, just like Soviet Russia pre-1989 and in China today, placed to ensure that everyone conforms.