𝓤𝓷𝓲𝓽𝓮𝓭 𝓝𝓮𝔀𝓼

Antisemitism has no place in Britain. Yet it has found a home in a number of our institutions, including the health service. The troubling reality is that too many Jewish patients and NHS staff no longer feel confident that their identity will be treated with respect.

The NHS’s founding principle is simple; that patients should receive care according to their clinical need, not their background, and that includes their ethnicity and their religion. No Jewish patient should have to wonder whether wearing a Star of David will affect how they are treated, yet the evidence shows that some do.

Lord Mann’s review of antisemitism in the NHS has found that Jewish staff have become reluctant to speak openly about their Jewish identity. The 2025 NHS Staff Survey found that 11% of Jewish staff reported discriminatory behaviour from patients or members of the public, while 13% reported discrimination from managers or colleagues.

It is deeply depressing that people are being made to feel unwelcome in a service that of course belongs to them every bit as much as anyone else, and we must confront the reasons for this sickness in the NHS and in wider society.

Kemi Badenoch has been clear that the rise of antisemitism is a national emergency. The 1930s gave us a grim lesson of what can happen when a climate of intimidation goes unchecked. What starts with misinformation and scapegoating can rapidly develop into even worse. The echoes of history are growing louder.

Today it is not just the far-right targeting Jews. Islamic extremists have built a strange alliance with hard-left activists, and they are dragging Jews into all sorts of conspiracy theories. Labour’s decisions to recognise Palestine and sanction Israeli settlements, both welcomed by Hamas, have empowered these same groups.

We have seen the world’s oldest hatred on display at marches in our cities, but the same bigotry permeates wider society, including the health service. At the fundamental level, this is a failure of leadership.

It is NHS leaders, as well as politicians, who have failed to act, and have allowed Islamists and far-left activism into the workplace. They have turned a blind eye to the blurring of professional boundaries and allowed an intimidating environment for Jewish staff and patients to bed in.

Whilst NHS staff have the right to their political views, there is a fine line behind differences of opinion and expressions of hatred. And in any case, patients have the right to expect politically neutral healthcare. Hospital wards should not be venues for partisan projects of any kind.

It is not that NHS workers should surrender their political beliefs, but that patients must never be left questioning whether the person responsible for their care is making a political statement directed at them or other patients.

This distinction has become badly blurred. And it has opened the door to expressions of antisemitism.

Lord Mann has called for measures to reinforce political neutrality in the NHS, better reporting of racist incidents and greater accountability for NHS leaders, as well as clear national guidance around political identifiers and NHS uniforms.

These proposals will meet resistance, but Ministers must not run scared of activist groups. When antisemitic comments are characterised as legitimate political arguments, when Jewish staff feel unable to report incidents, or when patients fear that expressing their Jewish identity will make them a target, something fundamental has gone wrong, and every day without action means that culture becomes more entrenched.

But more broadly, we must challenge head-on the institutional capture that NHS antisemitism is an example of. The toxic ideology behind this hatred cannot be removed without a complete culture change, starting at the top.

Britain has seen where the normalisation of antisemitism can lead. The Jewish community does not need another public institution telling them that their concerns are exaggerated, inconvenient or politically complicated – they need action.

We must be uncompromising against antisemitism, as with every other form of racism or religious discrimination.

Patients should be treated as patients. Doctors and nurses should be judged by their professionalism and conduct. And NHS leaders should be held responsible when discrimination is allowed in their organisations.

Antisemitism must be confronted. The NHS must be a place of care, not a place of division and Jewish community must know, without hesitation, that they belong.