NHS staff who make home visits say the sight of St George’s flags in parts of England has left some neighbourhoods feeling like ‘no-go’ areas, health leaders have warned.
An unnamed chief executive of an English NHS trust reported that many Black and Asian colleagues felt ‘deliberately intimidated’ when flags appeared during the summer. He said the displays made some staff feel excluded while carrying out the difficult, often autonomous work of visiting people in their homes.
The chief executive added that staff perceived the intimidation as intentional. His comments follow remarks from health secretary Wes Streeting, who last week warned of a return of ‘ugly’ racism similar to that seen in the 1970s and 1980s.
A second trust chief executive described flags appearing across streets as another form of intimidation. They recounted an incident in which a white member of staff with mixed-race children asked people erecting flags to move so she could park; those people filmed and followed her, then subjected her to several days of abuse, apparently because she had disrupted them rather than because of any view about the flags.
The Department of Health and Social Care has advised staff who face threats or aggression against themselves or their families to report incidents to the police. A DHSC spokesperson stressed that intimidation, racism and abuse have no place in the country or the NHS, and said that national symbols are intended to reflect shared history and values.
Nicola Ranger, general secretary of the Royal College of Nursing, said the fear connected to the flags is part of a wider, worrying trend. She warned that sustained anti-migrant rhetoric is fuelling growing racism, including against international and ethnic minority nursing staff whose work is essential to the health service. Community nurses and other staff who work alone or at night feel particularly vulnerable, she said, and employers must ensure their protection.
Separately, NHS leaders have cautioned that a five-day strike by junior doctors in England, the 13th since March 2023 and due to start on Friday, risks undoing fragile improvements in the service. Daniel Elkeles, chief executive of NHS Providers, warned that further strikes could erase hard-won progress and jeopardise a rare chance to address long-standing problems in the health service.
