The nationwide campaign to ‘Clap for Carers’ during Covid was “dangerous” because it made the NHS seem like a “national religion,” the parliamentary and health service ombudsman has said.
Rebecca Hilsenrath’s office looks into complaints against government departments, public organisations and NHS England.
She has just given evidence to a review of the health service, launched by the new government.
Labour is looking to reform the NHS after the health secretary Wes Streeting said it was “broken”.
She 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.”
Inspired by the Netherlands, Spain and Italy, Clap for Carers first came to the UK in March 2020, shortly after the first lockdown began.
Households around the country – including those in the Royal Family and the No.10 Downing Street – stood on their doorsteps, or leant out of their windows, to show their gratitude for the health workers struggling on as Covid cases rose.
Hilsenrath told Sky News she joined in with the clap for our carers at the time, too, but she has since heard from a worker within the NHS that such”deification” is “profoundly unhelpful”.
She said that she understood why people did it, telling the newspaper: “Of course, people were enormously grateful for the extraordinary efforts that people in the NHS went to during that time, including risking their own personal safety.”
However, the campaign soon drew public ire for being an empty gesture at a time when the NHS was seriously struggling with staff shortages, and constantly exposed to Covid.
Hilsenrath said: “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 number of complaints against the NHS in England have steadily risen in the last decade.
There were 27,479 reported between 2023/24, a stark increase compared to 2013/14, when there were 17,964, although there was a drop at the height of the Covid pandemic.
She said that rapid change in public opinion left NHS workers “in a place of risk”.
Hilsenrath, who previously led the the Equality and Human Rights Commission, said this reflects a “change in attitude towards the NHS and a far lower degree of happiness with services”.
She also told The Telegraph she did not think Streeting’s description of the NHS as “broken” was “really helpful” either, adding: “We have to have an honest conversation about what’s really going on and how it needs to do better.”