New diversity workshops for NHS employees include Black Lives Matter training
Despite the Health Secretary's crackdown on "wokery," NHS England staff are being offered training on the Black Lives Matter movement, according to The Telegraph.
White privilege, unconscious bias, "genuine allyship," and the interconnectedness of race and gender are among the topics covered in new diversity courses for health and care workers available on the NHS People website.
One internal course, seen by The Telegraph, focuses on the controversial BLM's history, guiding principles, and major messaging, and includes a link to an interview with the group's founders.
The course describes BLM as a "healing" movement that aims to "eradicate white supremacy" and "whose primary goal is to expose and oppose anti-blackness in all of its forms."
Since the assassination of George Floyd in the United States, doctors have been advised to examine NHS policies through the perspective of the Black Lives Matter movement, as this would be "helpful" in promoting greater racial justice in the health care.
The online course states that "BLM's ideology would push the NHS to critically analyze its organizations and procedures in order to solve the systemic impediments that have kept and demoted BME nurses to the lower tiers of the nursing hierarchy for decades."
Despite Sajid Javid, the Health Secretary, promising legislators this month that he would be "watchful for any waste or wokery" from the NHS as a result of the tax hike to support healthcare, the newest diversification drive is underway.
According to a government insider, the NHS depiction of BLM omitted the problematic requests from certain supporters to defund the police.
“At taxpayers' expense, managers, nurses, and doctors are being indoctrinated with lethal doses of dubious diversity and harmful propaganda,” a Whitehall source claimed.
"You may lose 'friends' if you commit to anti-racist allyship," another of the four NHS People diversity courses warns doctors.
“With fellow white people, honestly discuss how racism favors you and how racism injures BME [black and minority ethnic] people,” the course says as part of this process.
The training also includes the following: "White people will need to work intentionally and honestly on understanding white culture and white privilege in order to become true allies who will be in the fight for the long haul. [...] White people will have to accept that they are racial beings."
Exercises on "what is white privilege" and "the necessity of understanding your personal privilege" are among the other modules.
The allegations come after it was revealed that the chief people officer of the NHS, Prerana Issar, earned £35,000 more than the recently departed NHS chief executive.
Ms Issar received between £230,000 and £235,000 in the financial year 2019-2020, more than her previous boss Sir Simon Stevens and Prime Minister Boris Johnson.
"Taxpayers expect their money to be focused on improving frontline NHS services, not wasted on woke causes," said Danielle Boxall of the Taxpayers Alliance.
"Since there are already significant rules in place to prevent employment discrimination, training programs like these should not be necessary."
"Ministers should cut back on these contentious courses as part of the impending expenditure review to save much-needed monies."
Meanwhile, Sir John Hayes, the head of the Common Sense Group, a group of over 50 Conservative MPs, has written to Mr Javid, questioning if taxpayers' money is being "squandered on woke propaganda."
He called the health service's "propagation of the work of radical critical race theorists and peddling the dangerously divisive conceptions of communal racial guilt and collective racial oppression" "grossly improper."
His letter was triggered by a blog post titled "Dear white people in the UK" on the NHS Leadership Academy website, which recommended white professionals to be uncomfortable when discussing race issues.
The Telegraph then reported how NHS administrators were informed this year in a series of online seminars on "whiteness" and racial justice that speaking with a "cottage cream-thick English accent" was an indication of privilege in a series of online seminars on "whiteness" and racial justice.
Despite the fact that ethnic minorities make up nearly one-fifth of NHS workers – compared to 14% of the UK population – they are under-represented in many prominent positions.
"The NHS continues to improve recruitment, retention, and patient care by ensuring that all workers feel valued and supported," said an NHS spokesman.