‘An outpouring of love’: A psychosocial analysis of the NHS ‘Big Tea’ fundraising appeal

This article reports on a case study of charitable fundraising for the UK National Health Service (NHS) and examines its role in managing emotions and shaping our relationship with state-funded health services. Twitter data, images and fundraising materials were collected under the #NHSBigTea hashtag, which coordinates and celebrates annual fundraising events by NHS charities across the UK. Targeting existing affective attachments to ‘our NHS’, nationalistic rhetoric and the imperative to ‘give something back’ after Covid are shown to be part of wider feeling rules which create the NHS as an idealised object requiring performative displays of gratitude and positive affect. Discursive positioning of fundraisers and NHS staff as heroes becomes problematic in an affective economy where national calls to “be there” and show our love for the NHS set unrealistic demands and obscure existing deficits and existential threats to the NHS. Drawing on psychoanalytic perspectives, the article shows how, in times of crisis, displays of gratitude, love and positivity may defend against ambiguous feelings and intense fears of losing the NHS. These difficult emotions and anxieties must be acknowledged to avoid dangerous idealisations and allow a different relationship based not on gratitude but emotional and material investment. • The NHS ‘Big Tea’ is an annual fundraising event for the UK National Health Service (NHS). • Fundraising appeals target positive emotions and feelings of gratitude. • The idealisation of the NHS as an object of national love can be dangerous. • Public celebrations and expressions of love for the NHS may hide deeper anxieties.