The NHS has been accused of harbouring “anti-Semitic rot” after Jewish staff and patients described alleged abuse in British hospitals.
The Campaign Against Antisemitism (CAA) has published interviews with British Jews who recounted alleged incidents of antisemitism while working for or receiving treatment from the NHS.
One nurse said a colleague made a Nazi salute in front of her. Another patient, Saul Freeman, said his surgeon told him during an operation that Jews “shoot children in the head or the legs for fun”.
The charity also released polling suggesting that some British Jews fear their religion could affect whether they receive equal treatment from the NHS.
Almost half of those surveyed said they had taken measures to conceal their Jewish identity since the October 7 attack in Israel.
Stephen Silverman, the CAA’s director of Investigations and Enforcement, said: “At the very moment when they need the NHS the most, instead of being able to trust our national healthcare provider, Jewish people are having to hide their identity for fear of unequal treatment or abuse.
“As long as that is the case, the NHS cannot be said to be for everyone.”
In the CAA documentary Malignant: Anti-Semitism in the NHS, Shelly Lipman, a nurse at a Cambridge hospital, said a healthcare assistant asked her about the Hebrew calligraphy tattooed on her arm. She responded by explaining her Jewish heritage.
When she returned from lunch, Ms Lipman said she saw the colleague “literally holding a Nazi salute”. “I just felt like my jaw dropped for what felt like an hour,” she said.
Shelly Lipman, a nurse at a Cambridge hospital, said a colleague performed a Nazi salute in front of her
The incident followed a conversation about the meaning of her Hebrew calligraphy tattoo
Patient Saul Freeman said his surgeon told him that Jews “shoot children in the head or legs for fun” during a procedure
“I was just absolutely gobsmacked. Right next to a patient’s bed as well,” she added.
Mr Freeman was awake while undergoing surgery to remove potentially cancerous skin from his forehead. He said the conversation with his surgeon shifted from the price of oil to the conflict in the Middle East.
According to Mr Freeman, the surgeon said: “And the war’s still going on in Gaza, they are still killing children in Gaza.” He then added: “You would think they would know better given what happened to them in Europe.” Mr Freeman said the surgeon clarified that “them” referred to Jewish people.
The surgeon allegedly went on to say: ‘The Jews should know better…The Jews do it just for fun…They shoot children in the head or the legs for fun, and they do it differently for their own amusement each day.’
Mr Freeman said he felt ‘vulnerable’ while the surgeon was performing the incisions and slipped his star of David under his T-shirt as he ‘didn’t know if he was going to intentionally cause me harm’.
‘I was really aware that he probably had seen that and therefore he knew exactly who he was talking to,’ he added.
Mr Freeman made a complaint of the incident to Sheffield Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust, which said it would be ‘unable to provide details of any employment investigations, decision, or outcomes relating to individual members of staff’.
Jane McNicholas, chief medical officer at Sheffield Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, told Daily Mail: ‘Mr Freeman has raised his concerns with us and we are reviewing these as a matter of urgency.
‘We take any allegations of this nature very seriously and will respond accordingly based on the findings of the review.’
One senior Jewish medical professor said he received antisemitic death threats, while other Jewish doctors told CAA they have stopped wearing their name badges when possible to limit the amount of abuse.
Some said they had been ‘aggressively interrogated’ for wearing their stars of David – a religious necklace often worn by Jewish people – while other Jewish doctors have even quit the NHS to become private doctors, which they claim is safer.
‘Most can’t come forward because of the risk to their careers and their livelihoods, and in some cases, even to their safety,’ Mr Silverman explained.
Adam, a dentist, said many members ‘with Jewish sounding names’ were removed from a professional online chatroom to discuss patients’ problems, following comments from other members to kick ‘Zionists’ out for ‘spying’.
‘We saw discrimination, hate bias, accusations, stereotypes, conspiracy theories all to do with Jews,’ Adam said.
Some members were said to have written, ‘I will never treat a Zionist and I’m glad I don’t treat Jews’.
A spokesperson for the GDC said: ‘Discrimination has no place in dentistry. Everyone should be treated equally and with respect, whether a patient, member of the public or part of the dental team.
‘All forms of discrimination are inherently serious, and any allegations of this type that are reported to us, will be treated as such.
‘We continue to work with colleagues across healthcare to embed the Mann review recommendations to address antisemitism and other forms of discrimination so that everyone can feel safe at work and when accessing care.’
Another NHS staff member said they had planned to bring in donuts to celebrate Hanukkah, a Jewish holiday, in a similar way as to other religious holidays they had celebrated throughout the year.
She said she was told it was ‘inappropriate to do so due to the current climate’, which the interviewee interpreted as meaning ‘we are going to delete our Jews here’.
She was told by a staff member at a separate event that ‘all Jewish people are racist and because we were Jews, didn’t understand what racism was’.
When the interviewee tried to correct the woman making this statement and argued that Jewish people would understand racism, she said she was called ignorant and the woman ‘lunged across the table at me and tried to grab me’.
Mr Silverman said a Jewish patient was threatened with having his dialysis treatment stopped after he complained about a staff member for wearing a free Palestine T-shirt ‘that erased Israel as a Jewish homeland’.
Another patient said he had boycott Israel stickers placed around his room, according to the CAA.
‘I don’t think people want to report because we’re very scared of intimidation, retribution and repercussions. I think if they are reported there is a feeling they won’t go anywhere and it will just be rejected because it is not taken seriously,’ one interviewee said.
Consultant plastic surgeon Dr Ghassan Abu-Sittah faces a High Court hearing after the GMC appealed against a decision to clear him of claims of support for terrorism
Dr Rahmeh Aladwan was arrested several times and charged with four counts of inviting support for Hamas earlier this year
The documentary highlighted suspended NHS doctor Rahmeh Aladwan, who frequently posted about the conflict in Gaza and wrote online ‘the Jews love stealing Palestinian bodies and harvesting their organs as well as tormenting the family’. She was charged with four counts of inviting support for Hamas earlier this year.
Dr Aladwan has also been investigated by the General Medical Council (GMC) after concerns were raised about her fitness to practise, following a series of posts on her now-suspended X account in which she repeatedly talked of ‘Jewish supremacy’, labelled Israelis ‘worst than Nazis’ and described Hamas operatives as ‘oppressed resistance fighters, not terrorists’.
She had been cleared once before after the Medical Practitioners Tribunal Service ruled her opinions on social media did not amount to ‘bullying or harassment’.
Those posts included a description of the Royal Free Hospital in Hampstead, north London, as ‘a Jewish supremacy cesspit’, Israeli people as ‘worse than Nazis’ and the Holocaust as ‘a concept’.
The doctor who complained about her views told CAA that when Dr Aladwan discovered his identity, she would allegedly post often about him online alongside baseless allegations like ‘he rapes small girls’.
The documentary then shared a clip from a meeting of the British Islamic Medical Association in June 2025 which appeared to show senior GMC member, Dr Tista Chakravarty Gannon, saying the regulator was seeing ‘far more complaints around anti-Semitism than we are Islamophobia, and they were far more likely to close them as compared to the general body, if you will, of complaints’.
She added there were no plans to adopt the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance definition of anti-Semitism. BIMA has been contacted for comment.
Other medical professionals mentioned in the documentary include north London GP Dr Abdul Wahid, who was revealed as the long-time chairman of the UK branch of Islamist group Hizb ut-Tahrir.
In January 2024, the UK Government formally proscribed Hizb ut-Tahrir as a terrorist organisation, making membership or leadership within the group illegal under UK law. Dr Wahid was suspended by NHS England, but was reinstated on appeal and still practices as a GP.
Meanwhile Dr Abed Alfarra, an emergency medicine specialist with Leeds Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust, was filmed at a Health Workers 4 Palestine rally telling protesters: ‘Zionists control the media, Zionists control the world.’
The film also included a clip of consultant plastic surgeon Dr Ghassan Abu-Sittah telling a rally: ‘After eleven months, it’s clear the Israeli government and the Israeli population have now embraced the final solution…’
In January his views brought him to the attention of the Medical Practitioners Tribunal Service, where a hearing cleared him of claims of antisemitism and support for terrorism. The GMC has formally lodged an appeal, with a High Court judicial review expected in January 2027.
The film also showed Dr Ranjeet Brar, consultant vascular and endovascular surgeon, appearing on Communist Party channel Prol TV, where he said: ‘Who are the other group apart from the Zionists who wanted to say Jewishness was a special genetic makeup? The Nazis.’
In another clip, Dr Rehiana Ali, a consultant neurologist, openly said: ‘I don’t accept Hamas as a terrorist organisation.’
Midwife Fatima Mohammed meanwhile appeared in an online conversation saying: ‘Zionism is just illogical, irrational, it’s psychotic’.
The CAA called the current situation an ‘institutional crisis’.
Mr Silverman said: ‘Our documentary exposes the anti-Semitic rot at the heart of our NHS. The anecdotal evidence presented in our film, together with the empirical data provided by our polling, demonstrate the magnitude and severity of this institutional crisis.
‘The NHS touches us all at times in our life when we are the most vulnerable. This crisis requires a wide-ranging response that addresses the growing extremist culture within healthcare, the abysmal failure of regulation, the shocking lack of transparency and the total absence of accountability.
‘We cannot accept politicians pointing to past reviews and recommendations: we need real and robust action now. That is why we are also presenting a detailed plan to address this national scandal. Practitioners, trusts, regulators and others must all act.
‘At the very moment when they need the NHS the most, instead of being able to trust our national healthcare provider, Jewish people are having to hide their identity for fear of unequal treatment or abuse. As long as that is the case, the NHS cannot be said to be for everyone.’
An NHS spokesperson said: ‘The stories highlighted in this documentary show there is unacceptable antisemitism and racism in the NHS, faced by both our staff and our patients and we must root this out.
‘Any form of abuse against NHS staff is totally unacceptable and all local organisations must take a zero-tolerance approach to harassment, discrimination, racism and acts of violence – including police involvement and criminal prosecution where appropriate.
‘The NHS is taking targeted action to support our staff, providing protection and comprehensive psychological support for people reporting concerns, and implementing the recommendations from Lord Mann’s review to tackle antisemitism and other forms of racism in the NHS.’
Sir Jim Mackey, the chief executive of NHS England, previously said: ‘The NHS at its best is a place of compassion, care and unity – not conflict – and there is unacceptable anti-Semitism and racism in the NHS, faced by both our staff and our patients and we must root this out.’
In June, the Department of Health and Social Care said a review into anti-Semitism found some staff experience routine ostracism and had even considered leaving the NHS.
Lord Mann, who led the review, called on the NHS to be ‘a responsible and inclusive employer’. The Government’s independent adviser on anti-Semitism also made a series of recommendations.
In a separate review published in July 2025, Lord Mann and former Conservative minister Dame Penny Mordaunt warned of rising anti-Semitism across British society, including a ‘specific issue’ within the NHS.
Mandatory anti-racism training, specifically including anti-Semitism, will be put in place for NHS bosses and trust chairmen within six months.
Meanwhile mandatory training on equality, diversity and human rights, which is already in place for NHS staff, will be updated to include ‘quality assured content’ on anti-Semitism and anti-Muslim hostility, the department added.
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.’
