UK minister: Health service ‘failing to protect Jewish patients from racist doctors’

British Health Minister Wes Streeting said Monday that the UK National Health Service (NHS) is “completely failing to protect Jewish patients” amid a rising wave of antisemitism from medical staff since the Hamas onslaught of October 7, 2023, which sparked the Gaza war.

“Two years on from the horrific events of October 7th and just days after a despicable attack on our nation’s Jewish community, we must be unequivocal that antisemitism has absolutely no place in our NHS, or anywhere in our society,” Streeting told London’s The Times, referring to the deadly terror attack at a Manchester synagogue on Yom Kippur.

Campaigners have long warned of spiking antisemitism within the British health service, which they say leaves Jewish patients unsafe.

According to figures obtained by the Jewish News and cited by The Times, nearly 500 complaints of antisemitism relating to 123 doctors have been submitted to the General Medical Council (GMC) since October 7, 2023. Of those, 84 percent were closed at the triage stage, according to the data.

Streeting also told The Times he will overhaul the GMC and Medical Practitioners Tribunal Service (MPTS) after a number of cases in which medical professionals went unpunished for antisemitism.

“The NHS is a universal health service, which means that everyone, regardless of race, religion or creed, should feel safe seeking its care. I deplore the fact that this is frankly not the current reality for many Jewish patients and staff, and I am determined to change this for once and for all,” Streeting said.

“It should go without saying that doctors making racist comments about Jewish people is abhorrent and demands action. Yet all too often, appropriate action by regulators has been sorely lacking,” he said.

The comments by Streeting came two weeks after the latest incident in which a medic wasn’t suspended over antisemitic comments.

Dr. Rahmeh Aladwan was investigated and then cleared of wrongdoing over social media posts, including one saying that Israelis are “worse” than the Nazis, and claiming that the “Royal Free Hospital in London is a Jewish supremacy cesspit.” The MPTS determined that her comments would not “alarm or concern” the public, The Times said.

Campaign Against Antisemitism has today notified the General Medical Council @gmcuk of its intention to challenge in court, via judicial review, the decision not to impose conditions on Dr Rahmeh Aladwan while she is under investigation for misconduct.

The decision to permit Dr… pic.twitter.com/KwDkqoW32x

— Campaign Against Antisemitism (@antisemitism) October 6, 2025

According to The Times, since she escaped suspension, “Aladwan has posted incessantly about Jews and Israel,” including saying wide coverage of the terror attack on a Manchester synagogue on Yom Kippur was an example of “Jewish supremacism.”

UK-based antisemitism watchdog Campaign Against Antisemitism has notified the GMC that it will challenge the decision not to punish Aladwan, calling the decision “one of the most egregious examples we have encountered of a regulator failing in its duty to protect the public,” The Times said.

Other doctors who kept their license after being investigated for controversial comments included consultant pediatrician Dr. Ellen Kriesels, who wrote on X that “virtually every Jew has some feelings of supremacy,” and GP Dr. Kamran Ahmed, who posted what the GMC described as “objectively antisemitic and seriously offensive” content including that “the Israeli flag is modern-day swastika [sic],” The Times said.

The newspaper said that “the rare cases” where doctors were barred from practicing for antisemitic language included NHS surgeon Dr. Manoj Sen, who was barred last month for comments on social media referring to a Jewish man as “circumcised vermin” and using Holocaust-era Nazi language, including the German phrase “the Jews are our misfortune.”