Health Minister Will Quince has admitted the hiring of a £120,000 “head of diversity” by one NHS trust – at a time when nurses and ambulance drivers are grinding the health service to a halt – probably isn’t a great use of taxpayers’ money, and vowed to raise it with the head of NHS England. Appearing on LBC with Nick Ferrari, Quince became the latest Minister to act as if this is some kind of new problem:  

“I’ve seen that individual appointment, and I will be raising that with the chief executive of NHS England. One of the things that we do need to tackle… is recruitment and retention… we know there are problems with bullying, harassment, and indeed racism within our NHS. They are things that we have to tackle. I would still question whether you need somebody, a manager, on over £100,000 to undertake that role. So I’ll look at that very closely… I want to see NHS trust money being spent on patient care…”

Of course, Quince knows this isn’t just an individual appointment. These roles grow like weeds throughout the health service, even after other Ministers have talked the talk about cracking down on them before. Will can read through Guido’s archives if he needs a quick reminder…