Clapping for NHS in pandemic may have been 'dangerous', health ombudsman says

Clapping for the NHS in the COVID pandemic may have been “dangerous” because “no organisation can be a national religion”, the health service ombudsman has said.

Rebecca Hilsenrath also warned that “no organisation should be beyond constructive criticism”.

Ms Hilsenrath is the parliamentary and health service ombudsman, whose office investigates complaints against government departments, public organisations and the NHS in England.

She has submitted evidence to a review of the NHS launched by the new government, with the probe being headed by Professor Lord Ara Darzi.

Health Secretary Wes Streeting has declared the NHS “broken” and wants to reform the health service to fix it.

Ms Hilsenrath told The Sunday Telegraph: “There is an argument I have heard that clapping for the NHS during the pandemic was quite a dangerous thing to do … because no organisation can be a national religion, and no organisation should be beyond constructive criticism.

“I don’t think that it is helpful for any organisation to be treated as religion.”

Speaking to Sky News, the ombudsman said she clapped for the NHS during the pandemic.

But she added she had heard from someone in the NHS who said “deification and hatred are both profoundly unhelpful” – and that people tend to be at one extreme or the other due to the seriousness of the consequences when things go wrong.

Statistics show the ombudsman received 27,479 complaints about the NHS in England in 2023/24 – with around 66% of these at least partly upheld.

This compares to 17,964 complaints lodged in 2013/14 period.

The number of complaints has been on an upward trajectory since then, although it dropped significantly from 24,560 in the 2019/20 period to 18,727 in the 2020/21 period – which covered the start of the COVID pandemic.

It returned to 26,907 complaints in the 2021/22 period.

At first glance disrespectful – but NHS must be held accountable

At first glance Rebecca Hilsenrath’s challenge to the cherished status of the NHS seems at the very least disrespectful and at the very most sacrilegious.

The health service is our most cherished institution. Very few people would dare to attack it.

She says clapping the NHS during the pandemic may have had “dangerous” consequences by insulating it from criticism and warned against treating the health service as a “national religion”.

That does not mean we were wrong to clap for the NHS during the pandemic – to applaud the heroic efforts of its staff. She did it herself.

But that was a one-off, with the country in the grip of a deadly pandemic. The NHS has moved on. And when it fails in its duty of care to its patients it must be held to account.

It’s the NHS Ombudsman’s job to investigate every complaint that lands on her desk. And these only get to her after a long, exhaustive process to validate each and every one. And the numbers have climbed sharply – a 53% rise in the last decade.

They back up poll results that show public satisfaction with the NHS is at an all-time low.

Ms Hilsenrath warns against the continued inability of its leaders to radically overhaul its culture and listen to those it fails.

The health service’s repeated maternity scandals are a disgrace. And Ms Hilsenrath is right to call it out. The recommendations of these reviews fail to be implemented.

This is what she will be telling Professor Lord Ara Darzi, the man tasked by the government to produce the most comprehensive report into the failings of the NHS. For many in the health service it will make for extremely uncomfortable reading.

Ms Hilsenrath said this “does speak to a change in attitude towards the NHS and a far lower degree of happiness with services”.

“Of course, people were enormously grateful for the extraordinary efforts that people in NHS went to during that time, including risking their own personal safety.

“I also know that the national mood has changed since then, and I think it’s incredibly difficult as an NHS worker to consistently read about the failings in your service, and how you’re letting people down.”

The public perception of the NHS – including waiting lists and access to service – was a key issue in the general election campaign.

The ombudsman pointed out that there was “a lack of consistency” in the NHS, adding that “the ultimate price for failure is tragedy”.

She said: “When big things go wrong and terrible things happen you get the NHS saying ‘never again’, but actually it’s just not true.”

The way the health service is regulated is in “urgent need of reform” with a “vast amount of duplication” currently in place.

She suggested the high number of regulators leads to the NHS getting “faced by multiple recommendations” from different bodies – branding the model “a grossly inefficient way to run anything”.

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A Department of Health and Social Care spokesperson said: “The NHS is broken but we are determined to get it back on its feet so it can be there for all of us when we need it.

“We will be honest about the challenges facing the health service and will work to tackle them.

“The independent investigation into the NHS by Lord Darzi is a step towards identifying and solving these problems as we create an NHS fit for the future.”