How do Healthcare Workers 'Do' Guidelines? Exploring How Policy Decisions Impacted UK Healthcare Workers During the First Phase of the COVID-19 Pandemic

Pilbeam, Caitlin, Tonkin-Crine, Sarah, Martindale, Anne-Marie, Atkinson, Paul ORCID: 0000-0001-8740-6561, Mableson, Hayley, Lant, Suzannah, Solomon, Tom ORCID: 0000-0001-7266-6547, Sheard, Sally ORCID: 0000-0001-8116-9120 and Gobat, Nina (2022) How do Healthcare Workers 'Do' Guidelines? Exploring How Policy Decisions Impacted UK Healthcare Workers During the First Phase of the COVID-19 Pandemic. QUALITATIVE HEALTH RESEARCH, 32 (5). pp. 729-743.

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Official URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/10497323211067772

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.

Item Type:	Article
Uncontrolled Keywords:	COVID-19, healthcare workers, guidelines, policy, enactment, qualitative, pandemic response, interviews
Divisions:	Faculty of Health and Life Sciences Faculty of Health and Life Sciences > Institute of Infection, Veterinary and Ecological Sciences
Depositing User:	Symplectic Admin
Date Deposited:	15 Feb 2022 09:05
Last Modified:	18 Jan 2023 21:12
DOI:	10.1177/10497323211067772
Related URLs:	Author Publisher
URI:	https://livrepository.liverpool.ac.uk/id/eprint/3148969