Description
Background: The Covid-19 pandemic has placed a heavy burden on both care home staff and residents in England. Experiences of care home staff, residents, and families during the Covid-19 pandemic and its impact on their mental and physical wellbeing have received attention by many researchers. However, there has been limited research conducted to date, focusing on experiences of care home staff with the UK government’s fragmented response to the COVID-19 pandemic and the challenges they faced while implementing top-down policies.
Aim: This study explores everyday experiences of care home staff in care homes and the ways in which care homes have coped with the UK government’s fragmented response to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Methods: This qualitative study is based on fourteen semi-structured interviews with care home staff in the West of England, from November 2022 to September 2023. Interviews were also integrated with secondary data from national and local government policy documents. Interviews were conducted online, audio-recorded, transcribed verbatim, and analysed thematically using a combination of both inductive and deductive approaches.
Results: Analysis highlights a range of challenges faced by care homes during the pandemic including: regular changes in national guidelines, fragmented policy between national and local levels and, and care homes lack of capacity to implement all pandemic-related policies. In order to counter the impact of the pandemic on everyday life in care homes they introduced their own initiatives and policy practices that went beyond the National Covid-19 Guidance. Three bottom-up initiatives by care homes, are identified: infection control and prevention-related practices, socialisation, and enhanced communication-related practices.
Conclusion: Managing the COVID-19 pandemic in care homes benefitted from a collaborative culture within, and between, care homes that supported the development of local initiatives that went beyond the requirements and recommendations from national and local government.
