LONDON
The British health secretary on Wednesday warned that an "ugly" form of racism reminiscent of the 1970s and 1980s is resurfacing across the country, with health care workers increasingly facing verbal and physical abuse.
Incidents of verbal and physical abuse based on people’s skin color now happen so frequently that it has become "socially acceptable to be racist," Wes Streeting warned in a joint interview with The Guardian alongside Jim Mackey, the National Health Service (NHS) England chief executive.
The health secretary expressed how he has been "shocked" hearing NHS staff, especially those working in A&E (accident and emergency), recount growing levels of harassment, aggression and violence when their care gets delayed.
"The thing that has shocked me most of all is that the rising tide of racism and the way in which kind of 1970s, 1980s-style racism has apparently become permissible again in this country," Streeting said.
"I’m really shocked at the way this is now impacting on NHS staff," he added.
Also criticizing some politicians who condone racism, Streeting said: "I'm disgusted that a level of racism last seen when Britain was a very different country, 50 years ago, has made an ugly comeback."
He went on to say that he is also "frankly shocked" by those in parliament who have leaned into it.
His remarks come a week after the Royal College of Nursing (RCN) revealed that the number of racist incidents that nurses face has surged over recent years.
Both Mackey and Streeting admitted that, despite the NHS in England preparing for winter, some hospitals would "struggle" to maintain normal service during the cold spell, in which A&E units are expected to see record numbers of people seeking care.
Mackey added that corridor care – highlighted graphically by Age UK last week – is "one of the things that keeps me awake at night" and "one of the horrible, visible signs of drifting standards over recent years. It’s completely unacceptable."
He added that there’s a lot of flu around, there’s been a lot of COVID around and the industrial action issue is a complexity they could do without.