Health Secretary Urges NHS Bodies to Review Diversity and Inclusion Memberships

UK Health Secretary Steve Barclay arrives ahead of a Cabinet meeting in Downing Street, London, on Nov. 22, 2022. Stefan Rousseau/PA Media

The UK Health Secretary Steve Barclay has called on the heads of NHS bodies to review their diversity and inclusion memberships owing to “financial pressures, and wider societal concern about these issues.”

Barclay has written to major national health organisations, including NHS England, the UK Health Security Agency and the Care Quality Commission, asking them to question whether their “diversity and inclusion memberships” provided good value.

In the letter, seen by The Mail On Sunday, Barclay wrote: “In these times of financial pressures, and wider societal concern about these issues, I would ask that you, as a member of the wider health family, now review whether your organisation is getting value for money from your diversity and inclusion memberships and, if not, consider any steps that you could take to address that, such as following the department’s example and allowing any association/subscriptions that you have to lapse or be cancelled.”

He added that diversity and inclusion are “everyone’s responsibility and should be picked up through normal management processes and as a part of everyone’s role rather than through the use of external providers or discrete dedicated roles within organisations.”

A photo of an NHS logo taken on Nov. 6, 2010. Dominic Lipinski/PA

The government acknowledged the existence of the leaked letter, the contents of which the Epoch Times has not seen in full.

“Taxpayers rightly expect value for money from every penny spent in our NHS,” a Department of Health and Social Care spokesperson told The Epoch Times by email.

“That is why the health and social care secretary has asked the NHS and all of the department’s arms-length bodies to review whether their diversity and inclusion memberships are good value for money, and consider ways to improve,” they added.

“The NHS has one of the most diverse workforces in the country and we will continue to work to improve outcomes for all.”

Diversity and Inclusion Memberships Schemes

Diversity and inclusion memberships schemes are present in many public health services.

NHS Business Services Authority (NHSBSA) has made it onto LGBTQ+ lobby group Stonewall’s Top 100 Employers list out of a record 445 participating organisations, the largest number to ever enter.

However, some groups have expressed concerns about the influence of forced changes to language.

For example, the NHS has “desexed” some of its main sites on female medical conditions by using “inclusive” gender-neutral language that excludes the words “female” and “women.”

In December, 40 Conservative MPs who are part of the think tank Conservative Way Forward, found that NHS trusts are employing around 800 “diversity” staff, costing the taxpayer £40 million a year.

NHS England spent £30 million on the “provision of specialist Equality, Diversity, and Inclusion (ED&I) advice and expertise; £10 million by the NHS Confederation on a “race observatory;” and £219,000 by NHS England to “support the roll-out of the NHS rainbow badge.”

A nurse prepares a dose of a COVID-19 vaccine in Coventry, England, on April 22, 2022. Jacob King - WPA Pool/Getty Images

Don’t Divide Us (DDU) Director Alka Sehgal Cuthbert told The Epoch Times that it would be good if money spent on equality, diversity, and inclusion (EDI) training and initiatives was halted for financial reasons.

However, she said that the main reason EDI should be stopped is that it is “wrong.”

DDU was set up to take a stand against the UK’s “divisive obsession with people’s racial identity.”

“EDI racialises work cultures, exacerbates people’s sensitivities to skin colour, and that makes the kind of informal friendships and communication in workplaces really difficult,” she said.

Cuthbert also challenged Barclay’s suggestion that diversity and inclusion are “everyone’s responsibility.”

“We need to accept the problem is equity, diversity, and inclusion,” she said.

“What I think he’s saying, or what I think he would like to say is that we have a duty to treat people equally, as moral equals. So we treat individuals with dignity and we recognise our common humanity,” she added.

“But if you use the language of EDI, you will never get to where you want to be. The premise of EDI is that Britain is an institutionally racist country and most people will be transphobic unless they are trained out of it,” she added.

EDI

Some argue that diversity and inclusion memberships improve EDI.

They also form part of an HR role that stops organisations from being sued for violating the Equality Act 2010.

There are also extra pressures within the act that promote EDI.

Part 11 of the act contains clause Section 149, which introduced a “public sector equality duty.”

This obliges public bodies to “encourage persons who share a relevant protected characteristic to participate in public life or in any other activity in which participation by such persons is disproportionately low.”

Furthermore, Section 149 requires publishing measurable “equity objectives,” meaning that every public body has diversity duties when hiring staff.

This created a situation in which the UK now has twice as many diversity and inclusion workers per capita as any other country.

A Care Quality Commission spokesperson told The Epoch Times by email, “We received a letter from the secretary of state on Friday and will be responding within the allocated timeframe.”

The Epoch Times contacted NHS England, the UK Health Security Agency, and Stonewall for comment.