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The implications of policy on delivering a palliative approach in residential aged care
Rhetoric or reality?
Sonia Allen
School of Nursing & Midwifery, Monash University, Gippsland Campus, Faculty of Medicine, Nursing and Health Sciences, Churchill VIC
Margaret O'Connor
Vivian Bullwinkel Chair in Nursing, Palliative Care, Monash University, Peninsula Campus, Frankston VIC
Ysanne Chapman
Associate Professor, School of Nursing and Midwifery, Faculty of Medicine, Nursing and Health Sciences, Monash University, Gippsland Campus, Churchill VIC
Karen Francis
Professor of Rural Nursing, School of Nursing and Midwifery, Faculty of Medicine, Nursing and Health Sciences, Monash University, Gippsland Campus, Churchill VIC
Abstract
This critical ethnographic study aimed to understand policy and documentation in relationship to guiding nursing practice in delivering a palliative approach to residents of an aged care unit of a Multi-purpose Service (MPS). A thematic analysis was undertaken that searched the text for cultural determinants of practice, and similarities and differences between the data sets. Where discrepancies occurred, key informants were revisited and questioned regarding anomalies. Using a critical lens this interpreted data formed the substantive findings of this research.
The Guidelines for a Palliative Approach in Residential Aged Care (RAC) were not known or understood by management or nurses employed in this MPS. This paper supports the need for research to be conducted into evaluating the Guidelines as the current premise of this research is that policy is rhetoric not reality in providing a planned trajectory of care for residents and their family members.
Keywords
critical ethnography, multipurpose service/centre, nursing, palliative approach, rhetoric/reality
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