ABSTRACT
Over the last decade the trend of home-birth rates in the United Kingdom (UK) has remained consistent, with 2.4% of women giving birth at home in 2020.1 Throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, maternity services have seen significant changes to visiting policies, delivery of services and the suspension of home-birth services across the UK.2 This paper will explore the evidence regarding the experiences of those women and birthing people who choose home birth, with the aim to identify women's reasons for choosing a home birth during the pandemic. Some dedicated home-birth teams reported increased referral rates for a home birth and an increase in the amount of home births throughout the initial wave. It is unclear why home-birth rates appeared to have increased in the UK during the pandemic, especially since women's access to home birth may have been limited.
ABSTRACT
An introduction is presented in which the editor discusses articles in the issue on topics including, examining marginalized mortalities and ordinary deaths within the context of structural inequalities;and exploring the unnatural ways in which death is distributed and understood.
ABSTRACT
Prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, social work and social care practitioners had some the worst working conditions of any sector in the UK. During the pandemic, data revealed that social care occupations had higher COVID infection and mortality rates than the general population. The article reports the changing working conditions (measured via the Work-Related Quality of Life scale) and well-being (measured via the Short Warwich–Edinburgh Mental Well-being Scale) of UK social care and social workers across three timepoints between May 2020 and July 2021 through an online cross-sectional survey of working conditions and well-being. Analysis of variance demonstrated that both well-being and working conditions were significantly poorer in July 2021 (phase 3 [ n = 1,606]) than the previous two phases (n = 2,523 and n = 2,424, respectively), suggesting that both working conditions and well-being worsened within the social care and social work workforce across the pandemic. Furthermore, each of career satisfaction, working conditions, control, general well-being and home–work interface predicted poorer well-being at Time 3. Whilst chronically poor working conditions can lead to poorer individual psychological and physiological health outcomes, our findings highlight continually poor conditions in this sector, with potential further impacts on organisations and the service users that social care workers support. It is therefore important that individuals, organisations and government develop mechanisms to support these critical workers during and following the pandemic.
ABSTRACT
The Covid-19 pandemic meant that the delivery of asthma management in primary care changed virtually overnight, requiring the introduction of alternatives to face-to-face care. This study examines the experiences of nurses who were performing asthma reviews during the pandemic, identifying the key themes that emerged, as well as providing recommendations for future practice.
ABSTRACT
AUTH Why you should read this article: • To understand the clinical reasons for pre-treatment assessment of patients undergoing systemic anticancer therapy (SACT) • To appreciate the benefits of a digital SACT pre-assessment pathway for cancer patients • To familiarise yourself with the challenges of providing a digital service During the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic measures have been implemented in healthcare systems to reduce transmission of the infection. People with cancer are immunocompromised and at higher risk of contracting infections, therefore many cancer services have been conducting routine reviews and pre-treatment assessments remotely through telephone and video consultations during the pandemic. Patients who are to receive systemic anticancer therapy (SACT) should have an additional consultation to provide them with specific information about the therapy, including side effects and who to contact for advice if they develop these at home. This article describes the development and implementation of a digital SACT pre-assessment pathway in a large university hospital during the COVID-19 pandemic, which aimed to deliver information to groups of patients remotely. The article explores the challenges to implementation and discusses some of the findings of a patient feedback survey, which suggest that the digital SACT pre-assessment sessions have been successful overall.
ABSTRACT
Workload pressures within midwifery have magnified because of the global pandemic, causing anxiety and stress for healthcare professionals across all settings. The prediction of the retirement time bomb, combined with midwives leaving the profession as a result of burnout, is having a considerable impact on maternity service provision. There is additional recognition of stress factors caused by the changing landscape within maternity services, one of which has been identified as the national implementation of the continuity of care model. The support framework for midwives and student midwives and the continuous improvement process that the advocating for education and quality improvement model is designed to achieve is needed now more than ever in what have become known as unprecedented times. The author is passionate regarding support for student midwives and prior to lockdown, commenced a postgraduate course in coaching and mentoring. The rationale for undertaking this qualification was to enhance professional midwifery advocate skills further. This proved to be beneficial to the development of the professional midwifery advocate services.
ABSTRACT
Caroline Rollings, wellbeing lead for the National Association of Primary Care and joint chair of the One Voice Group, shares her insight into the immense pressure facing NHS primary care services, the consequences of that pressure, and strategies that managers can use to help their colleagues to cope.