All NHS staff to undertake enhanced antisemitism and anti-racism training
All 1.5 million NHS staff will be mandated to complete strengthened antisemitism and anti-racism training, the Government has announced.
New assessment questions and refreshed content is being developed, and staff will be asked to refresh their learning immediately upon it becoming available rather than awaiting the usual three-year cycle.
At the same time, Lord John Mann has been asked to lead a ‘rapid review’ into how healthcare regulators handle antisemitism and other forms of racism – from hiring practices and oversight to transparency in investigations.
Alongside this work, NHS England will review its uniform and workwear guidance to ensure that staff expression of religious identity is respected, while maintaining patient dignity and equitable care.
And the Government plans to require that Trusts, Integrated Care Boards, and arms-length bodies adopt the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s definition of antisemitism and review regulatory recommendations on Islamophobia.
Prime Minister Keir Starmer said: ‘The discrimination staff and patients have faced because of their race or religion goes against everything our country stands for.
‘The NHS was built on the principle that everyone should be treated equally and with respect, and I am determined to restore this to the heart of the health service.
‘That’s why I have asked Lord Mann to root out this problem and ensure perpetrators are always held to account.’
Health secretary Wes Streeting said: ‘The NHS should be there for all of us when we need it – regardless of income, race, or religion. Discrimination undermines everything our health service stands for, and undermines its ability to provide quality care.
‘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 even persistently using antisemitic or hateful language.
‘Patients put their lives in the hands of healthcare professionals. They treat us at our most vulnerable. They therefore have a special responsibility to provide total comfort and confidence.
‘I am grateful to Lord Mann for taking on this work. I expect his recommendations, and the action we are taking today, to help us enforce a zero tolerance policy to racism in healthcare.’
Last year, the GMC said it had seen a ‘high volume’ of complaints relating to comments doctors have made online about the Israel-Palestine conflict.
New training requirements in full
Existing equality, diversity and human rights programmes are being expanded to include:
- Enhanced content on discrimination and antisemitism
- New assessment questions to test understanding
- Training developed with equality and antisemitism subject matter experts
- Content aligned to core skills training framework
Source: DHSC
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READERS' COMMENTS [14]
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Excellent. I was feeling like I didn’t have enough mandatory training in my life.
And I have no doubt that the most effective way to counter racism is an e-learning module.
Why just NHS workers???
Come on royal colleges. Draw a line.
Let’s say, optimistically, that the training lasts 30mins. That would be an opportunity cost of 750,000 man-hours of NHS staff time, just among directly-employed staff.
I wonder if it’s possible that there might be better uses of that time?
Using the IHRA definition is ridiculous, it gives political cover to Israel and shuts down legitimate criticism of its actions. We should be fighting real racism and discrimination of all forms, not rewriting training to protect a state’s behaviour from scrutiny.
More soundbites
Oh dear, if it’s anti-racism training then, grammatically, shouldn’t it be enhanced ANTI-antisemitism training? Anyway NHS workers are the most switched on when it comes to decency and don’t need any more training or policies (maybe politicians do though)
Just looks like a shoddy ploy to push through the IHRA definition of antisemitism, a definition which Human Rights Watch has criticised for it’s chilling effect…
Training on every form of racism and extremism and extreme ideology. Separately..
Some find all this flag waving racist
Hope that will be in the mandatory training
What about patients wearing kefkes and palestinian flags
What about patients who are assylum seekers
Lets just carry on as usual and treat everyone as a human being
with caring empathy
We leave ALL religion
and race outside the doctors room
Isnt that GMC Good mecical practice
FFS how is more bullshit admin gonna stop racism u melons. U better buy X like Elon if u wanna beanwash a nation.
More unpaid time wasting. Can’t wait
When are we, as a profession, just going to say “No”. I don’t have a racist or anti-semitic bone in my body, and if I did, an e-learning module will make no difference.
What I don’t have is time, and work/life balance. And yet more banal “mandatory training” is going to eat into that even more, leaving the workforce just a little more burnt out and frustrated.
And burnt out, frustrated people are just a bit more likely to vent their frustrations on others, be less kind, less polite. Perhaps more likely to let those darker prejudices come to the fore.
It really is time the profession grew a spine, and told politicians and NHSE to jog on.
we need to learn to remember the different colours of fire extinguisher, and forget the different colours of people
What about the right of freedom of expression for the NSH staff then? Are we curbing that? disguised in an e learning mandatory training.
I think just take out the anti-racism thing, it makes Damning Muslims difficult, and then damning will be happy.