Britain’s socialised National Health Service (NHS) is spending nearly $10 million a year on “woke warrior” diversity roles, a report suggests.
The United Kingdom’s publicly-funded National Health Service (NHS) is said to be spending just short of $10 million per annum on roles aimed at improving “diversity and inclusion” — possibly much more.
The news comes as the NHS is put under significant strain as a result of inflation along with the poor running of the institution, with an ambulance worker strike last week causing havoc in England and Wales.
However, while the organisation overall is expected to run an over $8 billion budget shortfall next year, according to a report by The Telegraph various parts of the organisation have found room to spend millions of diversity roles.
Overall, a minimum of £8,220,783 (~$9,895,356.50) is spent on diversity and inclusion jobs within the health service every year, with the newspaper noting that the true number could be much higher, as it was only able to get data for 70 of the 125 acute hospital trusts operating within the NHS across England alone.
Meanwhile, other data gathered by The Sun earlier this year suggests that the service is spending as much as £40 million (~$48 million) per year on diversity and inclusion staff.
“While patients battle for every appointment and operation, woke warriors consume ever more resources,” John O’Connell, chief executive of the TaxPayers’ Alliance, said regarding the revelations, before demanding that government ministers “get a grip” and ensure more funds are directed towards frontline roles within the service.
Meanwhile, a spokesman for Health Secretary Steve Barclay claimed that the Tory politician is concerned about the “spiralling costs” of the job — though it remains to be seen if the Conservative Party government, which has been in power since 2010, will ever bother to actually do anything about it.
News that the British government is pumping millions into diversity roles within the country’s NHS could not come at a worse time for the embattled health service.
According to The Guardian, the organisation is already struggling to keep costs down, with it being expected that the socialised healthcare system will run a £7 billion (~$8.43 billion) budget shortfall next year.
Britain’s ongoing inflation crisis is only further complicating things, with many frontline workers within the organisation being forced to resort to using food banks as the increased costs of food, fuel, and other amenities make everyday life unaffordable.
Such dire economic straits have seen some within the United Kingdom’s health system resort to industrial action in the hopes of boosting their monthly pay packets.
For example, as a result of the chaos caused by ambulance workers going on strike in England and Wales last week, senior figures within the NHS warned the public not to avail themselves of the healthcare service at all if possible.
Britons were even told to refrain from risky actions such as getting drunk for fear that the country’s medical system would not be able to provide them with adequate care.