Getting a visit

How district nurses and general practitioners 'organise' each other in primary care

Datos Bibliográficos

ID2265778
AutoresShaun Speed (0000-0002-6133-7622, University of Manchester), Kristin Luker (0000-0002-2437-2904, University of Manchester), Karen A Luker
Año2006
Volumen28
Número7
Páginas883-902
Fecha de publicación2006-11-01
Peer ReviewedSí
Open AccessSí
TipoARTICLE
RevistaSociology of Health & Illness (JOURNAL)
Identificadores de la revistaISSN: 0141-9889 • E-ISSN: 1467-9566
EditorialWiley (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1111/j.1467-9566.2006.00511.x
PMID17163858
OpenAlexW2057805288
IdiomaEN
Citas recibidas7
Referencias citadas47

This paper examines the ways in which district nurses and general practitioners interacted and influenced each other's work within primary care services. The data presented here examine how the developments in the organisation of primary care affected the work of district nurses during a time of turbulent change. Qualitative data from 300 hours of participant observation and 40 semi-structured interviews with 33 district nurses were analysed using grounded theory, after which a literature review was undertaken. The findings from this study were interpreted using a Foucauldian notion of power and Fox's (1995) analysis of 'organisation'. The shift in power to general practitioners (GPs) has meant that they can exercise ever-increasing authority over nurses in their employ. Strict rules governed the process of inter-professional work and nurses and doctors used creative strategies to overcome the problems that existed between them. The data show that nurses could and did resist the power of GPs but this resistance generally elicited other more punishing forms of authority. Direct and indirect threats were commonplace. The data suggest that district nurses were moving into a closer, more business-like and tightly-controlled working relationship with general practitioners, through which competing discourses interplayed and circulated between GPs and district nurses in the organisation of primary care services

District nurse · Family medicine · Grounded theory · Health care · Participant observation · Political science · Power (physics · Primary care · Public relations · Qualitative research · Resistance (ecology · Sociology · Work (physics · Community Health and Development · Health Policy Implementation Science · Interprofessional Education and Collaboration · Medicine · Nursing · Psychology