The NHS is deeply valued across the UK and public attitudes often champion the free, comprehensive healthcare it provides. But the institution has been under significant strain in recent years and a growing disillusionment is taking hold among many who rely on its care.

We worked with Engage Britain and the PMA on a project that engaged nearly 2,000 members of the public, patients and staff to learn about their experiences of the NHS. The work found poor NHS communication is one of the public’s biggest issues with the NHS. 

In the report “I love the NHS, but ..." we make a powerful case for the urgent need to improve communication within the NHS. We found that more than half (55%) of people have experienced poor communication from NHS in the past five years and one in ten say their care has been affected as a result. Good communication should not be seen as a ‘nice to have’, but as fundamental to the functioning of the NHS. 

We are calling on the Government to deliver improvements in this space. In short, we are calling for:

1. An expansion of the system of care coordinators and improving access to clinicians with oversight of all the care received by people with complex conditions.
2. An expansion of the system of care navigators in GP surgeries across the country, helping people to navigate complex systems and linking people up with the right services.
3. Improvements to the uptake and use of the NHS App through improved functionality and greater publicity.

Engage Britain was a charity set up to show there’s a better way to do politics by bringing people together to tackle Britain’s hardest problems. "I love the NHS, but ..." Preventing Needless Harms Caused by Poor Communications in the NHS, is being published just after Engage Britain merged with Demos in November 2023.
The PMA is the leading professional membership body for non-clinical healthcare professionals, with a network of over 50,000 across the healthcare sector.

This report is the product of two years’ work by Engage Britain between 2021-2023, which the Patients Association supported. Engage Britain merged with Demos in November 2023, and this report has been published by Demos.
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