Scotland’s crisis-hit NHS is spending millions on ‘woke non-jobs’ as waiting lists spiral.
New figures reveal £5.6million has been spent on equality, diversity and inclusion (EDI) staff over the past five years as hundreds of thousands of patients wait for treatment.
One health board has been spending more than £500,000 annually on EDI staff, with the nationwide bill for taxpayers coming in at well over a million pounds every year.
In total, the huge sum spent on the staff could have restored the sight of more than 1,600 people and replaced the hips of hundreds of struggling Scots.
It was also enough to have paid for vital frontline staff, with the annual spending sufficient to fund around 40 nurses, almost 13 consultants or about 50 porters.
The scale of the spending has caused astonishment among critics and comes as Scotland’s health service faces a £1.3billion maintenance backlog to fix crumbling NHS buildings.
Tess White, deputy health spokesman for the Scottish Conservatives, said: ‘Many patients suffering lengthy delays will … wonder if the millions spent on these roles would have reduced waiting times, helped to recruit more staff or helped people secure faster GP appointments.’
The cash was enough to have funded around 40 nurses or almost 13 consultants
A private hip replacement in Glasgow starts at around £14,000. Cataract surgery, which can vastly improve eyesight, has fees starting from £3,092.
William Yarwood, of the TaxPayers’ Alliance, said Scots would be ‘startled by the soaring spending on EDI staff’.
He said: ‘With Scots suffering under the highest and most complicated income tax rises in the country, they expect their cash to be focused on core priorities rather than woke non-jobs.’
Of the health boards that provided data in response to a Freedom of Information request – as well as NHS National Services Scotland – between the 2019/20 and 2023/24 financial years, taxpayers forked out £5,664,071 on the EDI staff positions.
NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde spent the most of those who responded, with more than £2.4million racked up in the five-year period.
In the first 11 months of the 2023/24 financial year, the health board spent £549,563 on EDI staff.
A spokesman for the health board said it was the largest in the country, looking after more than 1.4 million patients and 41,000 members of staff.
He said: ‘The composition of NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde’s Equality, Diversity, and Inclusion Team is in place to ensure that we deliver on our commitment to designing and delivering health services for the needs of the diverse population we serve. This includes undertaking work to enable us to meet the requirements of the Public Sector Equality Duty as laid out in the Equality Act (2010).
‘Key examples of vital work that they drive is undertaking disability audits across our hospital sites and developing tools to be used in hospital wards to help deliver equalities sensitive care.’
In 2021/22, the last year with the full data available, the health service spent more than £1.2m on EDI staff.
A Scottish Government spokesperson said: ‘There is no place for discrimination of any kind in the NHS, or in Scottish society as a whole, and this needs support and commitment.
‘Fostering an inclusive culture in the NHS and supporting people from all backgrounds is key to improving patient care and staff experience, ensuring NHS Scotland can continue to attract and retain the staff it needs to provide high quality care to our increasingly diverse communities.
‘Boards spend around £10 billion a year on NHS staffing – spend on Equality, Diversity and Inclusion staff for 2023/24 represents 0.01 per cent of overall funding.’
