NHS staff should not be wearing “political symbols” such as badges professing support for Palestine or Israel or be wearing uniform to political marches, said the head of a review into antisemitism in the health service.
Lord John Mann found some Jewish NHS staff have felt the need to hide their religious identity during an eight-month-long examination into antisemitism and other forms of racism.
A series of recommendations will be published on Thursday, including improved reporting and learning from racist incidents and updated equality, diversity and human rights training to include antisemitism and anti-Muslim hostility.
Speaking on BBC Radio 4 Today programme on Thursday morning, Lord Mann was asked over the wearing of political symbols by NHS staff.
He replied: “If we take the example of a dentist, if I’m in the dentist’s chair and the dentist’s about to drill my teeth, I don’t expect my dentist to be wearing an ‘I love Palestine’ badge, or indeed an ‘I love Israel’ badge on their uniform.”
He said it will be up to the NHS to decide on what counts as a political symbol.
open image in galleryHe said: “It’s for the NHS to decide what its policy is in relation to that. I think the differentiation, the political badge that’s expressing a political expression, is the one that I have found with the Jewish community is a problem.”
Lord Mann added that NHS staff should not wear uniform to political marches. He said: “I hope people would be politically active and having their own views, but taking the NHS into that and using the NHS into that is, in my view, a problem.”
The peer’s review was commissioned by government last October, and comes amid a rise in concerns over antisemitism in British society.
In May, thousands of people turned out for a protest outside Downing Street to “face down extremists” after a series of arson attacks at Jewish sites in London, as well as a double stabbing in Golders Green.
open image in gallerySpeaking on his review, Lord Mann said: “Jewish people have to be confident that they will receive the same treatment as everyone else, at all times in all situations. If people feel, as they do, that some have to hide their identity as patients or suffer in silence as staff, then the universality of the NHS is fundamentally breached.
“The solutions are simple but require a consistency of approach across the whole of the NHS and clear leadership at the top and across all NHS trusts.”
The review has been welcomed by the Royal College of Nursing. General secretary and chief executive Nicola Ranger said: “Today’s renewed focus on tackling antisemitism and all forms of racism in the NHS is much needed. It’s absolutely essential that staff are safe at work, but the reality is racism in the NHS is on the rise, as is violence, aggression and sexual harassment. That these behaviours have become so normalised is alarming.”
Dean Royles, interim chief executive of NHS Employers, said the review “reveals beyond any doubt that antisemitism and others forms of racism in the NHS are rising, as they are within our wider society, and must be tackled with urgency by all of us”.