How do Healthcare Workers 'Do' Guidelines? Exploring How Policy Decisions Impacted UK Healthcare Workers During the First Phase of the COVID-19 Pandemic.
Qual Health Res
; 32(5): 729-743, 2022 04.
Article
in English
| MEDLINE | ID: covidwho-2325563
ABSTRACT
We describe how COVID-19-related policy decisions and guidelines impacted healthcare workers (HCWs) during the UK's first COVID-19 pandemic phase. Guidelines in healthcare aim to streamline processes, improve quality and manage risk. However, we argue that during this time the guidelines we studied often fell short of these goals in practice. We analysed 74 remote interviews with 14 UK HCWs over 6 months (February-August 2020). Reframing guidelines through Mol's lens of 'enactment', we reveal embodied, relational and material impacts that some guidelines had for HCWs. Beyond guideline 'adherence', we show that enacting guidelines is an ongoing, complex process of negotiating and balancing multilevel tensions. Overall, guidelines (1) were inconsistently communicated; (2) did not sufficiently accommodate contextual considerations; and (3) were at times in tension with HCWs' values. Healthcare policymakers should produce more agile, acceptable guidelines that frontline HCWs can enact in ways which make sense and are effective in their contexts.
Keywords
Full text:
Available
Collection:
International databases
Database:
MEDLINE
Main subject:
COVID-19
Type of study:
Experimental Studies
/
Prognostic study
Limits:
Humans
Country/Region as subject:
Europa
Language:
English
Journal:
Qual Health Res
Journal subject:
Nursing
/
Health Services Research
Year:
2022
Document Type:
Article
Affiliation country:
10497323211067772
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