Health service organisations have allocated almost £2million to internal staff groups that organised Eurovision watch parties and workshops on pronouns, whilst the NHS grapples with industrial action and extended patient queues.
Data obtained through Freedom of Information requests by the TaxPayers' Alliance uncovered that 154 NHS trusts earmarked £1,834,005.60 for these employee networks over a two-year period, according to The Daily Mail.
The revelations emerge as thousands of junior doctors recently concluded a five-day work stoppage following collapsed negotiations with the British Medical Association (BMA) regarding remuneration.
The BMA continues to seek a 29.2 per cent salary increase for its members.
Between 2022 and 2024, these employee groups organised more than 1,000 gatherings across 80 trusts, according to the investigation.
Manchester University NHS Foundation Trust arranged a Eurovision screening event, whilst The Princess Alexandra Hospital NHS Trust in Essex conducted a session on "Embracing Asexuality".
University College London Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust featured a presentation titled "Embracing your Afro/Curly hair", and Barking, Havering and Redbridge University Hospitals NHS Trust marked "International Pronouns Day".
Additional activities included "Breaking the Rainbow Ceiling" at Royal United Hospitals Bath NHS Trust and "pride crafting" sessions at King's College Hospital NHS Foundation Trust.
GETTY
|Some activities included "pride crafting" sessions
Political figures have expressed their disapproval of the expenditure, with Reform UK's deputy leader Richard Tice stating: "Herein lies the problem with our NHS: wasteful spending on pointless woke activities and a bloated middle management."
"Meanwhile, frontline services are left underfunded and struggling," he added.
Tice said that his party would "cut waste and unnecessary management, as well as purposeless DEI initiatives, and pump every penny straight into frontline care where it belongs."
Conservative Shadow Health Secretary Stuart Andrew labelled the statistics "alarming".
He said: "The first priority of the NHS should be to deliver the best possible outcomes for patients, and taxpayer's cash should be spent on improving that - not splashing hundreds of thousands of pounds on sideshows and distractions."
The TaxPayers' Alliance's Joanna Marchong declared: "Taxpayers will be dismayed to see NHS trusts pouring more money into staff networks year after year".
"While waiting lists spiral and junior doctors strike over pay," she added.
"With patients on waiting lists, it's astonishing to see staff spending their working hours at Eurovision parties, open mic nights and summer picnics."
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Richard Tice
An NHS spokesman responded: "Staff networks can play an important role in retaining staff and reducing absenteeism, improving care and savings costs."
The spokesman emphasised that numerous employee gatherings "are run at no or very low cost".