Thanking the Unsung Heroes in Healthcare

• According to the NHS Staff Survey 2019, 40.3% of respondents stated that they have felt unwell as a result of work stressors in the past year, the worst result in the past 5 years
• According to the NHS Staff Survey 2019, only 29.3% of staff reported positive action on health and wellbeing by their employer
• Concerns around the effects of NHS staff feedback is highlighted by Nigel Edwards, CEO, Nuffield Trust when he says, “It’s the most challenging time in NHS’ history with a staff shortage of 250,000 by 2030.”
• While TAP’s own research showed that 70% of people who want to thank public sector workers do not always get around to it

COVID-19 challenges:

• It was apparent that as a direct result of COVID-19, healthcare workers would be under even more pressure and strain than ever

It was also acknowledged that it would be increasingly difficult to thank hospital, clinic and care home staff face to face due to the lockdown rules and social distancing    

TAP’s overarching aim is to inspire the public to recognise and celebrate healthcare workers who all regularly 'go the extra mile' in their work. During the COVID-19 crisis, TAP’s aim, through its Healthcare Thanking Wall, was to collect messages of thanks for healthcare workers from all across the country and then share these messages with those being thanked to boost morale and support mental wellbeing.

TAP created a free-to-use Healthcare Thanking Wall on its website to make it quick and easy for members of the public to post supportive messages of thanks to healthcare workers and healthcare organisations.

These positive messages were then shared with the healthcare organisations via social media and by email.    

TAP also shared the messages via a range of media channels; national and regional media, digital posters in London, Birmingham and Manchester, and on national and local radio (this included 12 interviews as part of the BBC Make a Difference campaign, culminating in coverage on BBC Radio Two’s Zoe Ball Show.    

Since the launch of the Healthcare Thanking Wall in March 2020, hundreds of messages of thanks have been sent by the public to:

• Individuals, teams, organisations and in some cases the whole Healthcare sector / NHS
• Covering clinicians and non-clinicians  
• Hospitals, GP surgeries, healthcare clinics and care homes   
• Messages were received in words, videos, poems and songs. You can see some video messages here: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCheLBZt-WC4fb0V8OOI4z_w/videos
• They were from all around the UK, including Northern Ireland, Scotland, Wales and England
• In total, TAP’s Digital Thanking Walls gained over 1,000 messages which in turn resulted in over 500k views of the messages across TAP’s digital and social media channels
• More recently, TAP created a TAP Book of Thanks as a lasting legacy to the unsung heroes of our society during the COVID-19 crisis which has been shared with those that have been thanked     

In order to establish whether the Healthcare Thanking Wall made a difference during the COVID-19 crisis, we collected a range of feedback from those being thanked e.g.

From: Norfolk & Norwich University Hospitals:

“Thank you so much for taking the time to send us your compliments. I have passed them on to the departments and individuals in question. In a time of increased stress and pressure in the NHS setting, it makes a massive difference to morale to hear positive comments about the service we provide. Thank you once again.”

From Clare Mechen, Senior Nurse Manager, The Adams Practice:

“While we see ourselves as simply doing our job, many of my NHS colleagues are under tremendous pressure at the moment so it’s great to see how much the public appreciate what we are doing to keep them safe. TAP is the perfect place to share their positive messages of support”.

TAP’s key learning was that that the UK deeply appreciates the NHS and its amazing healthcare workers.

TAP is pleased to know that it played a small part in providing support for the nation’s healthcare workers during a very challenging period.

However what TAP really wants to achieve is for the giving of thanks to healthcare workers to continue long after the crisis has ended and for this to become the new normal; after all, that’s why TAP was initially created in January 2019.