Keir Starmer has ordered a review of antisemitism in the NHS, saying “clear cases” are not being dealt with adequately.
The prime minister said John Mann, the government’s independent adviser on antisemitism, would lead the review as part of a wider crackdown on antisemitism in the UK.
During a visit to the Community Security Trust (CST), which monitors antisemitism and provides protection for Jewish communities in the UK, the prime minister also announced £10m would be provided for security for Jewish amenities, including synagogues and schools.
He said: “We have heard loud and clear in the last few days and weeks that words are not enough, action is what matters.”
The Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) later confirmed that the “urgent review” followed “recent incidents of antisemitism from doctors, which drew stark attention to problems of culture and the regulation in the health system”. It said the review would look at “how to protect patients and staff from racism and hold perpetrators to account”.
The health secretary, Wes Streeting, said: “I have been appalled by recent incidents of antisemitism by NHS doctors, and I will not tolerate it. There can be no place in our NHS for doctors or staff continuing to practise after persistently using antisemitic or hateful language.”
Announcing the review at the CST, Starmer said: “Lord Mann is going to do a review of the NHS for us. There are just too many examples, clear examples, of antisemitism that have not been dealt with adequately or effectively.
“We’ve already put in place management training in relation to the NHS, but I think we need a wider review, because in some cases, clear cases are simply not being dealt with, and so we need to get to the root of that.”
Meanwhile, the government is asking NHS England to adopt the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance definition of antisemitism and “set clear expectations” that every trust, integrated care board, and arms-length body does the same.
NHS England was reviewing uniform and workwear guidance, the DHSC said, to “protect freedom of religious expression while ensuring patients feel respected at all times”, adding that “the guidance will not impact staff’s freedom to protest and speak out on political issues, but it will ensure that the political views of staff do not impact on patient care”.
At the CST visit, Starmer also said universities had been “too slow” in dealing with cases of antisemitism, singling out the University of Oxford, which is understood to have suspended a student on Wednesday after he was arrested on suspicion of inciting racial hatred.
The student is alleged to have chanted for Gaza to “put the Zios in the ground” during a protest in London on Saturday. Starmer said: “Look at Oxford this week. That was a slow reaction to the clearest of cases.”
Starmer’s visit followed the terrorist attack at the Heaton Park synagogue in Manchester on 2 October in which two men died.
Statistics released by the Home Office last week suggest antisemitic hate crime remains near record levels. The prime minister said: “The figures are all going in the wrong direction. And it’s not just the figures, it’s the feeling of insecurity and the fear that it instils in our community.”
In a separate review published in July, Mann and the former Conservative minister Penny Mordaunt warned of rising antisemitism across British society, including a “specific unaddressed issue” within the NHS.
The home secretary, Shabana Mahmood, who accompanied Starmer to the CST on Thursday, said she was reviewing protest legislation and providing additional police protection outside synagogues and other locations.
But she said the “bigger question” was how to improve community cohesion so that Jewish children could “go to school without learning what a lockdown is”.
Mark Gardner, the chief executive of the CST, said the meeting had been “very straightforward and very productive”, adding: “We don’t want to live behind high walls for the rest of our lives.”
After the announcement, Claudia Mendoza, the chief executive of the Jewish Leadership Council, said: “Antisemitism in the NHS has been out of control.”
Meanwhile, the government has said it will also look at how best to support Muslim communities in the face of rising Islamophobic hate crime.
