Much work has been carried out on the concepts of care and caring . These contain multiple definitions with little consensus. Despite this they are seen as a prerequisite for nurses and are central in measuring the quality and effectiveness of the National Health Service in the United Kingdom. This interpretivist work set out to investigate the concepts of care and caring from the viewpoint of district nurses in the North East of England, and to examine the factors that influence the caring practices entered into by the participants. The work used grounded theory methods and situational analysis. Data were collected via 22 one-to-one interviews with 14 participants. Situational analysis brought to the fore both post-modernist and Foucauldian perspectives on the caring practices indentified. Findings suggest there are 3 senses of caring practices entered into: fundamental, functional and situational. Each sense of care has distinct defining features which can be linked to the discourses produced from four defined social arenas: historical, professional-modernising, organisational-managerial and media. The power exerted by these distinct social arenas, their social worlds of concern and their related discourses can be either repressive or permissive. When permissive it can lead to practitioners to transit from one sense of caring practice to another. The current caring senses are the contemporary incarnation of conflicts that have been inherent in nursing and district nursing from their inceptions. The implications of these insights can be felt across the National Health Service, the district nursing service, educational organisations and the professional organisations. They centre on the following recommendations:- To articulate how care and caring are constructed across the nursing disciplines. To clarify the position of basic nursing care in the qualified nurses role. The better articulate the role and impact of district nursing patient care. To have educational programmes that reflect academic and emotional intelligence, with the focus on critical thinking skills. And to investigate the current level of bureaucracy, its usefulness and how it influences care and caring.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:bl.uk/oai:ethos.bl.uk:657610 |
| Date | January 2014 |
| Creators | Coe, Dorothy |
| Publisher | University of Sunderland |
| Source Sets | Ethos UK |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Electronic Thesis or Dissertation |
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