A Christian nurse has claimed the National Health Service (NHS) is “forcing racist ideology” on students, in the first case of its kind.
Amy Gallagher, 33, is suing the Tavistock and Portman NHS Foundation Trust alleging discrimination on the basis of race, religion and philosophical belief, as well as victimisation and harassment.
The mental health nurse, who is in the final stages of a two-year course in forensic psychology at the trust, objected to a lecture titled “whiteness – a problem of our time” in Oct 2020, where attendees were forced to confront “the reality of white privilege”.
In another race lecture the following month, Ms Gallagher claimed she was told that “Christianity is racist because it is European” by a talk leader.
The case escalated in March this year when an external speaker at the trust complained to the Nursing and Midwifery Council, alleging that Ms Gallagher could not work with “diverse populations” and had “inflicted race-based harm”.
Paul Jenkins, chief executive of the trust, told her that it “has committed itself to an explicit ambition of becoming an anti-racist organisation”.