Britain’s socialised healthcare system, which constantly complains it is in need of more cash, is reportedly splashing out more than £40 million per year on diversity and inclusion staff.

According to the findings of Freedom of Information requests sent to all 223 NHS trusts and 42 integrated care boards of NHS England, The Sun newspaper reported that there are currently at least 812 “diversity officers”, which cost the taxpayer some £40.7 million annually.

The tabloid noted that the sum would pay for the equivalent of 1.3 million GP appointments or hire 1,200 new nurses.

The chief executive of the TaxPayers’ Alliance, John O’Connell, commented: “Taxpayers are losing patience with these right-on roles in the health service.

“Bossy bureaucrats are guilty of picking the pockets of working Brits to fund diversity demagogues instead of nurses and doctors. Health chiefs should focus precious resources on frontline services.”

The report found that on average, each NHS trust has three diversity officers on a salary of £47,000. The pay increases with seniority, however, with one board recently advertising a senior equality, diversity and inclusion manager at the rate of £70,000 per year.

While figures within the taxpayer-funded socialised healthcare system persistently make public complaints about underfunding, separate research from the TaxPayers’ Alliance revealed that the NHS was funding some 493 staff networks, with some being used to propagate woke ideology within the health service.

The Freedom of Information requests found that LGBTQ+ networks , which represented the largest share of such schemes at 101 networks, conducted “tea and rainbow cake” events for healthcare workers and sessions to discuss preferred pronouns.

The report found that the staff network scheme cost the taxpayer at least £1,081,878 over the past three years — however, the researchers noted that the true figure is likely much higher, given that less than half of the NHS trusts contacted actually responded to the Freedom of Information requests.

When pressed on what was the purpose of staff networks, the North Middlesex University Hospital Trust said that they were formed to promote “equality, diversity and inclusion” through “organising celebration and awareness-raising days and events”.

The NHS, like other public institutions in Britain, is supposedly politically neutral, however it has faced criticism for openly promoting left-wing issues, including spending nearly £60,000 on painting an LGBTQ+ rainbow zebra crossing at the height of the Chinese coronavirus crisis.

The nation’s socialised healthcare system has also come under fire for promoting leftist views on language, including removing the word ‘women’ from online advice pages about female-only cancers in order to align with the concept of gender neutrality.

Responding to the revelation of the healthcare system spending millions on diversity officers, an NHS spokesperson said: “While it is down to individual NHS Trusts to decide how they best they support their own staff, this story ignores the fact that NHS England is working to reduce the number of job posts by 30-40 per cent” — although it was not clear that such reductions will include diversity staff.

The spokesperson also claimed that “the NHS is also one of the most efficient health services in the world, spending a far lower proportion on administration costs than comparable countries.”

Follow Kurt Zindulka on Twitter here @KurtZindulka