Singleton, G;
Dowrick, A;
Manby, L;
Fillmore, H;
Syversen, A;
Lewis-Jackson, S;
Uddin, I;
... Vindrola, C; + view all
(2021)
UK Healthcare Workers' Experiences of Major System Change in Elective Surgery During the COVID-19 Pandemic: Reflections on Rapid Service Adaptation.
International Journal of Health Policy and Management
10.34172/ijhpm.2021.101.
(In press).
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Abstract
Background: The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic disrupted the delivery of elective surgery in the United Kingdom. The majority of planned surgery was cancelled or postponed in March 2020 for the duration of the first wave of the pandemic. We investigated the experiences of staff responsible for delivering rapid changes to surgical services during the first wave of the pandemic in the United Kingdom, with the aim of developing lessons for future major systems change (MSC). Methods: Using a rapid qualitative study design, we conducted 25 interviews with frontline surgical staff during the first wave of the pandemic. Framework analysis was used to organise and interpret findings. Results: Staff discussed positive and negative experiences of rapid service organisation. Clinician-led decision-making, the flexibility of individual staff and teams, and the opportunity to innovate service design were all seen as positive contributors to success in service adaptation. The negative aspects of rapid change were inconsistent guidance from national government and medical bodies, top-down decisions about when to cancel and restart surgery, the challenges of delivering emergency surgical care safely and the complexity of prioritising surgical cases when services re-started. Conclusion: Success in the rapid reorganisation of elective surgical services can be attributed to the flexibility and adaptability of staff. However, there was an absence of involvement of staff in wider system-level pandemic decisionmaking and competing guidance from national bodies. Involving staff in decisions about the organisation and delivery of MSC is essential for the sustainability of change processes.
| Type: | Article |
|---|---|
| Title: | UK Healthcare Workers' Experiences of Major System Change in Elective Surgery During the COVID-19 Pandemic: Reflections on Rapid Service Adaptation |
| Open access status: | An open access version is available from UCL Discovery |
| DOI: | 10.34172/ijhpm.2021.101 |
| Publisher version: | https://doi.org/10.34172/ijhpm.2021.101 |
| Language: | English |
| Additional information: | © 2021 The Author(s); Published by Kerman University of Medical Sciences. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/ by/4.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. |
| Keywords: | United Kingdom, Surgery, COVID-19 Pandemic, Healthcare Workers |
| UCL classification: | UCL UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Medical Sciences UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Medical Sciences > Div of Surgery and Interventional Sci UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Medical Sciences > Div of Surgery and Interventional Sci > Department of Targeted Intervention UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Population Health Sciences > Institute of Epidemiology and Health |
| URI: | https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10133946 |
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