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NHS: Hospitals Must Provide ‘Justification’ For Hiring White People Instead of Minorities

Bosses at an NHS Trust in London have told interviewers that they must have a “justification” for hiring a white person over an ethnic minority.

The anti-white hiring policy has been instituted by the Royal Free NHS Foundation Trust, which operates three hospitals in London. Initially applying since 2018 for only senior positions, the Daily Mail discovered on Monday that it now must be in place for any job offering where both white and ethnic minority candidates apply.

When the job vacancy is filled by a white person instead of an ethnic minority, a report must be written by the chairman giving a “justification” for why this was the case, including an explanation as to why hiring the white candidate was a “more suitable” decision, along with “scoring notes” for comparison.

The failed ethnic minority applicants must be provided with ways to “develop their experience, skills or amplitude” so that they have a greater chance in succeeding if they apply for other jobs within the NHS Trust.

Within 10 working days of the hiring decision, this report must then be handed to the chief executive of the Trust. If not, the interview panel will be noted as having failed to do so in the monthly “Workforce Race Equality” progress report. The entire process does not take place if an ethnic minority candidate is chosen.

 

“It feels like a tick-box exercise,” a senior hospital source told the Daily Mail. “When we discuss who the best applicant was after the interview, it’s not about their ethnicity. So justifying your decision based on where they might be from does take a lot of time because you have to revaluate your decision from a completely different perspective, based on race rather than ability.”

The “extra bureaucracy” resulted in the hiring process being slowed down even further than it already was, the source noted. Despite this, they argued that if the policy was going to continue to be implemented, then it should be applied to every failed candidate, and not just when hiring white people.

“We are committed to having a diverse workforce and we seek to ensure all candidates, irrespective of their ethnicity, have equal opportunities to work at the Royal Free London,” a spokesman for the Trust claimed when asked for comment.

This comes as British government ministers have said that they will crack down on “waste and wokery” within the NHS, with the Mail reporting last week that the NHS is spending at least £1 million on “diversity, equity and inclusion” positions, with such titles as “mindfulness leads.”

This news and commentary by Jack Hadfield originally appeared on Valiant News.

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