Do you want £115,000 a year? Apply for the latest woke NHS role

With record backlogs, an unprecedented nurses’ strike and typical winter pressures already taking a huge toll on the NHS, you’d think bosses would be pumping every penny into frontline care.

But instead, the cash-strapped health service has run an ad for a £115,000 “director of lived experience” a year who is able to create “bold spaces”.

Critics argued the six-figure role was a “kick in the teeth” for taxpayers as millions of patients await the backlog of elective care.

The ad, run by the Midlands Partnership NHS Foundation Trust, boasts it is the first job of its kind in healthcare.

The NHS has previously referred to experiencing racism or discrimination or being a “white ally” and acknowledging white privilege as examples of a “lived experience”.

NHS “non-jobs” spending continues. Critics say the health service hiring a £115,000 lived experience director who is “interpersonal talent” and a “strategic bridge builder” is a “kick in the face” for taxpayers

The very senior position at the Midlands Partnership NHS Foundation Trust is described as the first of its kind in healthcare, with the successful candidate having to be able to create “bold spaces”.

Advertisements for the job, posted on the NHS recruitment website as well as third-party sites such as LinkedIn, say the successful candidate will be “interpersonal talent” and a “strategic bridge builder”.

They must also have a “personal experience of life-changing health conditions” and, having sought health services, then “experienced significant power imbalances”.

A supplementary document for applicants states that addressing power imbalances within the trust will be a key task for the successful candidate.

“The director will provide psychologically safe environments that allow people to co-produce and become equal partners in their care,” it reads.

Another part of the document says the director must also create “bold spaces” for patients and families to provide feedback on the organization.

Other priorities include finding “rarely heard” disadvantaged groups “who may experience health inequalities”.

TaxPayers’ Alliance digital campaign manager Joe Ventre said trusts could ill afford to waste money on “non-jobs” when the NHS was under such financial strain.

“Well-paying part-time jobs like this are a slap in the face to struggling taxpayers,” he said.

“At a time when nurses are on strike over pay and patients are waiting for backlogs, there can be no excuse for foundations to waste money.

“Healthcare needs to end these direct roles and focus resources on frontline care.”

Over 7 million people in England, around one in eight people, are now on the NHS waiting list for elective care, with many living in significant pain while awaiting procedures such as knee and hip replacements.

Queues are expected to get worse in response to the NHS strikes, which began yesterday with up to 100,000 nurses on picket lines.

A successful Director of Live Experience candidate can expect to earn between £110,000 and £115,000 per year.

That’s about four times what a newly qualified NHS nurse earns around £27,000.

More than 7.2 million patients in England were behind in October (red line) – or one in eight people. More than 400,000 have been pending for at least a year (yellow bars)

But MPFT has defended the advertisement for the position.

Neil Carr, Trust’s Chief Executive, said: “For nearly 10 years, MPFT has been at the forefront of using the experience of people who use our services to improve them.

“National guidance recommends the appointment of a patient director who is responsible for raising the profile of the service user voice in the planning, implementation and oversight of shared decision-making.

‘We are proud to continue our tradition of co-production.’

This is not the first time the NHS has been criticized for offering high salaries for non-frontline positions.

In October, the NHS was slammed for advertising diversity officer vacancies worth £700,000 in just one month.

And an earlier study by MailOnline in August found five diversity roles offering staff in senior equality roles £76,000 a year.

Four of the five positions offered flexible working, with some actively encouraging employees to work from home.

Continued NHS recruitment for such roles comes despite former Health Secretary Sajid Javid’s pledge to stamp out “waste or wokery” in healthcare.

However, Steve Barclay, who now holds the role after being appointed by Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, has yet to state his position on the issue.

The call for applications for the Live Experience Director role closes on January 8th.

In other NHS news…

Up to 60 PERCENT of surgeries have been canceled due to NHS strikes – as officials warn coordinated strikes by thousands of ambulance workers next week will get worse

The NHS’s worst week for ambulance handovers: More than 12,500 patients taken to hospital by 999 crew members had delays of over an HOUR before being treated… as Strep A fears put massive pressure on crippled 111 teams with a 60- percent increase in calls

A further THREE children die from Strep A in the UK as the death toll reaches 19 and pharmacists gain the power to prescribe alternative antibiotics due to drug shortages