The Royal College of Nursing (RCN) is calling upon health and care employers to prioritise tackling racism and engage with the RCN and other trade unions to agree stronger mechanisms to protect staff.
RCN General Secretary and Chief Executive Prof Nicola Ranger said: “These racist incidents are absolutely disgusting, and it is a mark of shame that they are rising like this across health and care services. Every single global majority nursing professional deserves to go to work without fear of being abused and employers have a legal duty to ensure workplaces are safe. These findings must refocus minds in the fight against racism.
“If health and social care employers fail to make their workplaces a safe environment for nursing staff, it is unsurprising that those same staff leave, and their services are less safely staffed.”
The RCN and other other health sector unions signed a joint statement demanding an end to anti-migrant rhetoric and calling for safer communities for all. Responding to the RCN, Daniel Elkeles, chief executive of NHS Providers, said: “There’s no room for racism in the NHS. It’s horrific. We wouldn’t have an NHS if we hadn’t over decades recruited talented and valued people from around the world. Diversity of the NHS workforce is one of its biggest strengths.
“All of our highly valued NHS staff should feel safe at work and be treated with respect as they do their best for patients and communities. Trust leaders know they must do more to create the right conditions to enable this and take action when these behaviours occur. Politicians and public must understand that what they say and do have consequences.”
At the trade union Unison, head of health Helga Pile said: “Nurses, healthcare assistants and other NHS staff must be able to do their jobs without harassment or abuse. Health and social care services can’t operate without a diverse workforce. Yet growing toxic and racist rhetoric on immigration is leaving many staff fearful.
“Workers need better protection, especially when out in the community caring for the sick and vulnerable. Employers and ministers must redouble their efforts so all NHS staff feel safe, particularly those from overseas who choose to work here.”
Railways
“This is not a situation our union will ever accept. BTP officers themselves have warned that their current level of deployment is unsustainable. The government must step in with a proper funding plan and must legislate for a standalone offence to deter attacks on public transport workers. If employers fail to act, our union will not hesitate to move towards a national ballot to ensure our members are protected at work.”
London Assembly
At its November 2025 meeting the London Assembly police and crime committee heard evidence about active ‘bystander intervention’ training as part of its look into violence against women and girls (VAWG) and hate crime on London’s public transport. Among the committee’s invited guests was Andy Fearn, Co-Executive Director, Protection Approaches; which runs a national hate crime reporting and support service for East and Southeast Asian communities, On Your Side. While neighbourly disputes is probably the number one experience of hate crime that comes through the service, experiences on or around transport would be the second highest place or space, he said.
Bystander training
He’s been funded to deliver such training with thousands of Londoners over the past few years by the Mayor of London’s Shared Endeavour Fund and through Transport for London (TfL). He told the Assembly members that while CCTV can help the police to identify a perpetrator. Where it is really difficult is, currently, in lots of our experience of supporting victims, the victim is asked specifically in which carriage at what time was the incident. If they do not have those details, they are told, “We cannot search through hours of CCTV to identify exactly when this incident happened and so I am afraid there is not enough evidence. We must shut the case.”
Fearn said: “There is a real difficulty there because most victims are not thinking about logging the exact time and the carriage they were on or the bus or whatever it was when they are experiencing a hate crime. They are often frozen and in a sense of fear. One thing we try to encourage people in the active bystander training is perhaps to do that for them if you have witnessed what is happening because they will not be thinking about that.”
While the police and local government do good work, their efforts may be duplicated. A woman who feels unsafe in Waterloo station in London, for instance, has the options of reporting this to British Transport Police (directly or via the Railway Guardian app), StreetSafe or on the Lambeth Council Safer Streets site.
More in the January 2026 edition of Professional Security Magazine.
Photo by Mark Rowe: Euston Square Tube station sign beside University College London Hospital (UCLH).
