‘Anyone can make bad use of a good law’: exploring how constrained choice can result in moral injury

Abstract

There are times within health and social care settings where professionals ask recipients of services to make complex and life altering choices. How these choices are presented by professionals has a profound impact on the experience of those accessing services. These experiences pattern their subsequent understanding of and response to both services and the professionals working within them. For professionals, the ways in which choices are offered and the culture of practice within which they are working affects both the relationship and engagement they have with those accessing services; as well as personally impacting upon their workplace wellbeing and motivation. There is a need to better understand how the context of choice-making affects both those accessing services and professionals and how it can be improved.