Technology and homecare in the UK: Policy, storylines and practice

IF 1.9 3区社会学 Q3 PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION

Journal of Social Policy Pub Date : 2023-04-13 DOI:10.1017/s0047279423000156

K. Hamblin, Diane Burns, C. Goodlad

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引用次数: 0

Abstract

UK policy discourse presents technology as a solution to challenges facing care services, including issues of quality and the mismatch between care workforce supply and demand. This discourse characterises technology as ‘transformative’, homogenous and wholly positive for care delivery, eliding the diversity of digital devices and systems and their varied uses. Our paper draws on data gathered through 34 interviews with care sector stakeholders and four in-depth case studies of UK homecare providers to comparatively analyse ‘storylines’ of technological solutions expressed by policy (macro-level), sector stakeholders (meso-level) and homecare managers and care workers (micro-level) alongside enacted experiences of technology-in-use. The ‘storylines’ presented by care sector stakeholders and homecare managers converged with those of the policy discourse, emphasising technology’s capacity to enhance quality and efficiency. Our case studies however highlighted several implications for care work and organisational practice in homecare provision: the technologies we observed sometimes produced additional tasks and responsibilities, undermining the efficiency and quality storylines. The experiences of care providers and workers engaging with technologies in homecare warrant further investigation and greater prominence to challenge a discourse which is at times overly simplistic and optimistic.

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英国的技术和家庭护理:政策、故事情节和实践

英国的政策话语将技术作为解决护理服务面临的挑战的解决方案，包括质量问题和护理劳动力供需之间的不匹配。这种论述将技术描述为“变革性的”、同质的、对医疗服务完全积极的，忽略了数字设备和系统的多样性及其各种用途。我们的论文借鉴了通过对护理部门利益相关者的34次访谈和对英国家庭护理提供者的四个深入案例研究收集的数据，以比较分析政策(宏观层面)、部门利益相关者(中观层面)、家庭护理经理和护理工作者(微观层面)以及技术使用的制定经验所表达的技术解决方案的“故事情节”。护理部门利益相关者和家庭护理管理者提出的“故事情节”与政策话语相融合，强调技术提高质量和效率的能力。然而，我们的案例研究强调了对家庭护理工作和组织实践的几点影响:我们观察到的技术有时会产生额外的任务和责任，破坏了效率和质量。护理提供者和工人在家庭护理中使用技术的经验值得进一步调查和更突出地挑战有时过于简单化和乐观的话语。

本文章由计算机程序翻译，如有差异，请以英文原文为准。

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来源期刊

Journal of Social Policy Multiple-

CiteScore

4.40

自引率

20.00%

发文量

期刊介绍： The Journal of Social Policy carries high quality articles on all aspects of social policy in an international context. It places particular emphasis upon articles which seek to contribute to debates on the future direction of social policy, to present new empirical data, to advance theories, or to analyse issues in the making and implementation of social policies. The Journal of Social Policy is part of the "Social Policy Package", which also includes Social Policy and Society and the Social Policy Digest. An online resource, the Social Policy Digest, was launched in 2003. The Digest provides a regularly up-dated, fully searchable, summary of policy developments and research findings across the whole range of social policy.