Camilla Tominey clashed with Wes Streeting (Image: GB News)
presenter Camilla Tominey clashed with Health Secretary following ‘s announcement that England would be abolished. As the government takes back control of the NHS and its budget, Camilla asked why there was a £120,000 a year job for a Diversity, Equity and Inclusion manager still being advertised.
She asked: “Only this month, there is a role advertised in the South West of England for an NHS DEI anager on, wait for it, £122k – why are they still advertising for these roles? Can the NHS, with a waiting list of 6.3million people, afford to be spending £122k on a DEI role? What is going on?” Streeting replied: “Yeah there are two things I’d say, one is Jim Mackey and I are slamming the brakes on overspending in the NHS and making sure that we are reducing the numbers of…” Tominey cut in: “Okay so are you going to the pull that advert?”
Camila Tominey asked Streeting ‘what is going on?’ (Image: GB News)
Streeting tried to continue: “But some of the DEI roles, some of them have really lost their way, I saw a report this weekend suggesting that we should change the name of midwives to, I can’t even remember, I find that very frustrating, we’ve got black women 3 or 4 times to die in child birth…”
Tominey hit back: “Okay that’s great, but Mr Streeting why are these roles still being advertised if you’re cutting down on them, why are they still on websites?”
There was a long pause as Streeting eventually replied: “I think it is fair to say it has taken a little while for some people in the NHS to get the message, I think the announcement will have sent a strong and clear message, and I want to make sure every penny going into the NHS is being well spent.”
He then went on to clarify that addressing some areas of diversity in hospitals was very important, including addressing why poorer people are more likely to die than richer people, why men are more likely to die than women and why black women have more difficult childbirths than white women.
Streeting addressed the prospect of job losses on Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg on Sunday, as he said that some cuts would be needed to try and address the overspending in the NHS.
Around 9,000 administrative roles are set to be cut at NHS England and the Department of Health and Social Care as part of the changes, which is around half of all roles at the two organisations.