The implications of policy on delivering a palliative approach in residential aged care: rhetoric or reality?
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.
School of Nursing & Midwifery, Monash University, Gippsland Campus, Faculty of Medicine, Nursing and Health Sciences, Churchill, Victoria, Australia.
Sonia
S
Allen
Margaret
M
O'Connor
Ysanne
Y
Chapman
Karen
K
Francis
D001315:Australia; D006291:Health Policy; D016852:Housing for the Elderly / Q000458:organization & administration*; D009723:Nurse-Patient Relations; D010166:Palliative Care; D011787:Quality of Health Care