How do you praise NHS staff?

Although we regularly feel a huge amount of gratitude for healthcare staff, it’s easy for our busy lives to get in the way of saying thank you. You’re not alone. In a survey which TAP carried out with over 200 people, 70% of people who described themselves as natural thankers, said that they didn’t always get a chance to say thank you.

This can be for a range of reasons from not having the time, not knowing who specifically to thank, not having the right contact details or simply not knowing the correct protocol for thanking someone in an NHS hospital or GP clinic.

While there were more opportunities to say thank you to healthcare staff in person prior to the pandemic, for example during a visit to your local GP, we’ve been told by hospital patients that even they didn’t always get the chance to say thank you to everyone who had cared for them; the doctors and nurses, and just as importantly the cleaners, the kitchen staff and porters. When it came to discharge day, the people they wanted to thank were not always on duty or simply busy elsewhere.

And what if you’re a friend or relative of someone who has received excellent healthcare, how do you locate the right people to share your appreciation...

So, how do you say thank you to the NHS?

Well, that’s why TAP was created in the first place. To make it easier to pass on your thanks, whether you’re a patient, friend or relative; you can do so in the moment, digitally and securely. Whether that’s saying thank you to the frontline care team or support staff.

You can thank someone special using TAP’s free-to-use social thanking platform in a number of easy ways:

• Via TAP’s healthcare thanking walls at thankandpraise.com - there are a number of organisation-specific thanking walls however you can also leave a message on our main Healthcare Thanking Wall
• Via TAP’s private messaging platform if the organisation has registered
• Via TAP’s social media channels; Twitter, Facebook and Instagram
• Via TAP’s free App available from Google Play Store and Apple App Store simply search for ‘TAP Thank and Praise’!

Saying thank you is a simple act however it can have a transformative effect on the person being thanked. Afterall, according to the NHS Confederation survey , 9 out of 10 of senior managers are concerned about the long-term impact of COVID-19 on the well-being of their staff and just 33% of staff said their organisation takes positive action on health and well-being.

Here are just a few thank you messages selected from thousands of messages of appreciation on TAP’s social thanking platform:

So, whenever you want to say thank you to NHS staff or a healthcare worker in another organisation, simply visit www.thankandpraise.com and show how appreciative you are!