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Clapping For NHS May Have Shielded it From Necessary Criticism, Health Watchdog Warns

by Toby Young
18 August 2024 9:00 AM

Religiously clapping the NHS during lockdown may have resulted in ‘dangerous’ results as it was shielded from necessary criticism, according to the Health Ombudsman. The Mail has more.

Rebecca Hilsenrath called for a revamping of the health service’s culture as she warned treating it like a “national religion” could contribute to complacency and failure to reform where necessary.

The Ombudsman’s office has submitted its report as evidence for an investigation of the NHS which is due to be published in September.

It also detailed a 50% rise in complaints about the NHS to the Ombudsman since Covid hit the U.K.

New Health Secretary Wes Streeting ordered the investigation, led by Professor Lord Darzi, when he took up his new role after Labour’s July election victory, as he declared the NHS is “broken”.

Ms. Hilsenrath told the Telegraph “no organisation should be beyond constructive criticism”, adding that she thinks the U.K.’s perception of it’s health service has shifted since the “gratitude” shown during the pandemic.

She drew attention to a failure by the NHS to implement the recommendations of inquiries or listen to the grievances of those it lets down, meaning it is not learning as it should from fatal mistakes.

Maternity was cited as a particular area of increasing concern, with complaints regarding it doubling in a year.

In the 2023/24 period, the Health Ombudsman received almost 27,500 complaints about NHS England – two thirds of which were at least partially upheld – roughly double that of 2011/12, and up nearly 50% on 2020/21.

However, Ms. Hilsenrath did push back against the Health Secretary’s assertion that the NHS is broken, despite acknowledging a “lower degree of happiness with services”.

She said she did not want to detract from the “brilliant things” happening in some areas of the NHS, whilst being able to have a mature conversation about its shortcomings.

For example, two thirds of maternity units have been deemed by the Care Quality Commission (CQC) to be inadequate or requiring improvement for safety.

Ms. Hilsenrath also emphasised that reform of the NHS should not focus on changing its funding, but the way it works, saying that changes needed are about the “culture” rather than its financing.

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

The Ombudsman was speaking against a backdrop of a report finding a “series of errors, omissions and misjudgments” in the treatment of Nottingham killer Valdo Calocane – who was diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia three years before stabbing Barnaby Webber, Grace O’Malley-Kumar and Ian Coates last year.

Worth reading in full.

Tags: Health OmbudsmanNHSRebecca Hilsenrath

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9 Comments
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transmissionofflame
transmissionofflame
9 months ago

“Covid hit the UK” Ffs!
I’m sure the authors of the report were all vocal in discouraging the “clapping” during the “pandemic”

7
0
nige.oldfart
nige.oldfart
9 months ago
Reply to  transmissionofflame

Their silence was deafening, add also the key worker title for some turned them from self important oiks to really annoying, patronising, self important oiks, who feel they are even more entitled than what they considered themselves to be, prior to the covid initiated stop everything we need to do a national stock take debacle.

4
0
Marcus Aurelius knew
Marcus Aurelius knew
9 months ago

Clapping For NHS May Have Was Designed To Ensure it Was Shielded it From Necessary Criticism And To Support An Entirely False Narrative

Last edited 9 months ago by Marcus Aurelius knew
12
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Free Lemming
Free Lemming
9 months ago

Clapping for the NHS was a propaganda tool – one of countless others deployed during Covid – but served a very specific and critically important purpose. For the state to keep the lie alive it needed regular buy-in from the populace, and it needed to shape a war-type spirit of “we’re all in this together”. The state needed people to see that other people stood alongside them, and also stood alongside the organs of the state (NHS, BBC etc). This was absolutely fundamental to their psyop. Also the reason for masks of course.

Last edited 9 months ago by Free Lemming
9
0
JXB
JXB
9 months ago

No entity which produces something for consumption that is not part of a market price mechanism can know how its output is valued by those who consume it, cannot quantify efficiency or labour productivity, cannot manage its output to serve consumer interests.

It has no basis on which it can change to improve.

No entity which is assured it can never go bankrupt and the people in it lose their jobs, because it is protected by the entire political class for purely political reasons, has any incentive to put the needs of those who consume its output ahead of its own needs and those running it.

Each Party/Government can evade responsibility for the dire state of the NHS by blaming the one in power previously – serial denial.

NHS staff have been trained by the political class for the last 70 years to deflect criticism and avoid any blame by screeching: Not enough funding! Not enough doctors and nurses! And everyone’s favourite: Tory cuts!

The NHS is a fundamentally flawed institution as are all State-run socialised entities. Why people imagine it can be fixed when the fifty odd previous attempts to fix it failed, beggars belief.

The NHS, like the Norwegian Blue, is bloody-dead-mate – long dead, stillborn. Putting rouge on the cheeks of the corpse every now and then won’t bring it back to life.

4
0
bertieboy
bertieboy
9 months ago
Reply to  JXB

We’ll put.
My father (in his 90’s) died last year having had a working life in company finance, his last role being that of company secretary. The quality of care he received when he became dependent on the NHS service in his last few years was seriously uncoordinated between the various clinical disciplines which had implications for his overall quality of care. He was continually saying that the NHS was far to too big to manage and had systemic structural issues that were not due to finance per se. His view was that the only hope was for it to be broken up.

3
0
Jonathan M
Jonathan M
9 months ago

I am proud to say that I never once clapped or banged pots and pans for “Our Wonderful NHS™”.

5
0
Marcus Aurelius knew
Marcus Aurelius knew
9 months ago
Reply to  Jonathan M

I went outside one Tuesday evening wondering what all the noise was about and quite honestly I thought I was dreaming. Then a few seconds later I thought simply,

“… idiots,”

and went back inside.

Last edited 9 months ago by Marcus Aurelius knew
3
0
Jackthegripper
Jackthegripper
9 months ago

“Ms. Hilsenrath also emphasised that reform of the NHS should not focus on changing its funding, but the way it works”

The NHS will never change the way it works while there is no incentive to do so. The incentive being competition. The NHS absolutely needs to change it’s funding model, no other country uses the same system and while we have a state funded monopoly provider nothing will get better. The decline in service, productivity and health outcomes will continue, while the taxpayer funds the NHS.
Why should they get better when there are no penalties for failure?

2
0

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