Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask His Majesty's Government, further to the Written Answer by Baroness Merron on 10 February, what steps they are taking to reduce expenditure and staff time spent on diversity schemes in the NHS.

Taxpayers rightly expect value for money from the funding that is spent in the National Health Service.

The NHS and the Department’s arms-length bodies are continually expected to review their expenditure with a view to finding efficiency savings and ensuring value for money for the public purse.

Equality and diversity initiatives that exist within the NHS focus on targeting health inequalities as well as addressing the abuse and discrimination that some NHS staff face in the workplace. They also help NHS organisations comply with legal requirements set out for public bodies in the Equality Act 2010, and the public sector equality duty.