Description
This qualitative study investigates how care homes in South-West England managed and responded to the everyday challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic While many studies explore the impact of the pandemic on care home staff, residents, and families, limited research addresses care homes staff experiences with filtering top-down rules and guidelines during 'uncertain times'. Drawing on the concept of street-level bureaucracy, this study examines how professionalism operates under crisis conditions and how it impacts discretion and organizational response within care homes. Based on fourteen semi-structured interviews with care home staff, including managers, analysis highlights care homes engaged in effective response mechanisms and developing policy practices in response to the needs of staff, residents and their families by moving beyond the scope of established guidelines. By mobilizing professionalism discretion under crisis conditions, care homes initiated bottom-up policy practices, centred around four different categories: strengthening infection control and prevention, promoting socialisation, enhanced communication and fostering intra- and inter-professional teamwork. This study, in contrast to the existing research highlighting a bleak picture of the challenges experienced by care homes during the pandemic, emphasises the ability of care home staff to take action and their resilience in facing pandemic-induced challenges.
