NHS ‘failing in duty of care’ if staff wear pro-Palestine badges, says Wes Streeting

"When someone is going in for treatment [and a doctor or other staff] may be wearing a badge from their home country or might be wearing a political lanyard about a cause they care about, if the [patient] they are treating sees that and has any reason at all to doubt whether that person is going to treat them fairly or equally and feels uncomfortable and less safe, well... we have failed in our duty of care to the patient.

He added: "The NHS shouldn't be a place for politics - we are taking a much more robust approach to that."

Streeting went on to say that the limit of political expression within the NHS should stop at the discussion of domestic policy.

"I have said to the British Medical Association (BMA) and others... if you want to put posters up criticising the government, I'm not wild about it, but I think in a democracy, it would be pretty antidemocratic to say I'm going to ban stuff that is criticising me as the health secretary - but beyond that, I don't want to see politics in [this] work place. It is not right."

Fears amongst Jewish people regarding the treatment they will receive in the NHS were palpable at the Q&A, with some audience members saying that they remove their Star of David necklaces before entering a hospital, and one even saying that she, as well as other people she knows, has requested that the word "Jewish" be taken off her medical records.

In July, Lord Mann, the government’s independent adviser on antisemitism, told the JC that some medics within the NHS wear Palestinian badges "without thinking through the implications" and insisted that it "needs sorting and it needs sorting quickly".

He called for mandatory antisemitism training in the health service, adding: “We can’t expect people to be able to challenge antisemitism if they don’t know what it is, and we can’t presume they know what it is."