Latest news with #InternationalPronounsDay
Daily Mail
21 hours ago
- Health
- Daily Mail
NHS trusts budget nearly £2million for 'woke' staff events including 'International Pronouns Day' and talks on 'embracing your Afro hair' and 'breaking the rainbow ceiling'
The NHS has allowed trusts to spend almost £2million on 'staff networks' which have hosted a series of ' woke ' events over the past two years, the Mail can reveal. New figures show the health service budgeted more than £1.8million for the internal staff groupings, which are usually linked to race, sexuality, gender, disability or religion. More than 154 NHS Trusts responded to Freedom of Information requests from the TaxPayers' Alliance (TPA) revealing how the networks have hosted hundreds of events between 2022 and 2024. They included a Eurovision Viewing Party at Manchester University NHS Foundation Trust, and an event on 'Embracing Asexuality' at the The Princess Alexandra Hospital NHS Trust in Essex. NHS staff also attended a talk on 'Embracing your Afro/Curly hair' at University College London Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, and another on 'International Pronouns Day' at Barking, Havering and Redbridge University Hospitals NHS Trust. A talk on 'Breaking the Rainbow Ceiling' was held at the Royal United Hospitals Bath NHS Trust, while King's College Hospital NHS Foundation Trust hosted an event on 'pride crafting'. The NHS said many of the events are run at 'no or very low cost', but the TPA said it was 'astonishing' to see staff spending their time at such events instead of focusing on frontline care. It comes after thousands of junior doctors carried out a five-day walkout, after talks between the Government and British Medical Association (BMA) soured over a dispute about pay. The BMA is demanding a 29.2per cent pay rise. More than 1,000 events were held by staff networks between 2022 and 2024, the FOI revealed, at 80 trusts. In total, £1,834,005.6 was provided to the networks in funding, but it is not clear how much was actually spent over the period. Joanna Marchong, investigations campaign manager of the TPA, said: 'Taxpayers will be dismayed to see NHS trusts pouring more money into staff networks year after year, while waiting lists spiral and junior doctors strike over pay. 'With patients on waiting lists, it's astonishing to see staff spending their working hours at Eurovision parties, open mic nights and summer picnics. 'There is a time and a place for staff engagement and with resident doctors walking out and the NHS haemorrhaging money, now isn't the time. Ministers must get a grip and put patients before perks.' Reform UK deputy leader Richard Tice told the Mail: 'Herein lies the problem with our NHS: wasteful spending on pointless woke activities and a bloated middle management, meanwhile frontline services are left underfunded and struggling. 'Reform UK would cut waste and unnecessary management, as well as purposeless DEI initiatives, and pump every penny straight into frontline care where it belongs.' Tory shadow health secretary Stuart Andrew said the figures were 'alarming', adding: 'The first priority of the NHS should be to deliver the best possible outcomes for patients, and taxpayer's cash should be spent on improving that - not splashing hundreds of thousands of pounds on sideshows and distractions. 'The Conservatives - under Kemi Badenoch's leadership - are the only party that are serious about delivering the reform the NHS needs, from our common sense proposals to ban doctors from striking, to pushing for improvements in productivity and innovation.' [must keep] An NHS spokesman said: 'Staff networks can play an important role in retaining staff and reducing absenteeism, improving care and savings costs. 'Many staff events – including ones highlighted here – are run at no or very low cost, but where employers do invest in staff it is important that care is taken to ensure it represents good value for taxpayers' money.' NHS England describes staff networks as 'an important mechanism' to 'help us to shape our organisational culture to create a fairer and inclusive work environments for all'. Many NHS trusts have staff networks representing those who are BAME (Black, Asian, and minority ethnic), LGBT+, women, or who have a particular religion or belief.
Daily Mail
21-07-2025
- Politics
- Daily Mail
GRAHAM GRANT: A growing army of woke apparatchiks now dominate every corner of public life. Votes will be won by the party which vows to take an axe to it…
You were probably worrying about how Police Scotland would be celebrating International Pronouns Day – but be anxious no longer. As we revealed yesterday, it's one of a host of key dates in a woke 'inclusion' calendar helpfully supplied to officers by force diversity managers.
