From the manager's point of view: work intensification, posthuman ethnography, and healthcare in England

Abstract

Drawing on fieldwork conducted in a hospital in Greater Manchester, England in 2016–17, we describe how a set of national health priorities were translated into work for hospital managers and clinicians during a period of significant organizational pressure. Departing from the focus on practice and posthuman relations in many recent ethnographies of healthcare, we attend to inequalities between perspectives on organizational change, exploring the hidden work involved in producing improvements to care quality in a public general hospital. Putting practice in perspective, we shed light on relations between the emergent politics of bureaucracy and more contentious politics of healthcare. Reflecting on connections between the posthuman turn and rationales of management, we emphasize the need to view social science theory in its broader social context, and examine practices of work, care and management from bottom‐up points of view.