As NHS staff across the country grind the health service to a halt with strike action, the TaxPayers’ Alliance (TPA) has uncovered some of the fun activities they’ll likely be missing out on as they hit the picket lines. According to new data, almost 2000 working hours of staffers’ time at the East Suffolk and North Essex NHS Foundation Trust – which will today be afflicted by strikes – was spent on “events and lectures” between April-December 2022. Presumably all life-saving work on health and nutrition, you’d like to think…

It turns out these trusts had better ideas. Of the fifteen events, four celebrated Black History Month, six focused on LGBTQIA Awareness sessions, and two were full-day conferences celebrating National Nurses Day and the Allied Health Professionals.

The fifteen events lasted a cumulative 65 and a half hours, with at least 305 staff in attendance. The six LGBTQIA Awareness sessions alone lasted a minimum of 4 hours, according to the TPA. Bear that in mind the next time a family member waits half a day to be seen in A&E…