IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/sae/socres/v29y2024i1p83-100.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Critical Reflections on the COVID-19 Pandemic from the NHS Frontline

Author

Listed:
  • Anthony Lloyd

    (Teesside University, UK)

  • Daniel Briggs

    (Universidad Europea de Madrid, Spain)

  • Anthony Ellis

    (University of Lincoln, UK)

  • Luke Telford

    (University of York, UK)

Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic fundamentally changed the way we live, work, and interact with each other. Nowhere was the pandemic more profoundly experienced than on the frontline of healthcare. From overwhelmed Intensive Care Units to shortages of Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) and clap for carers, the UK’s National Health Service (NHS) became the focal point for the pandemic response. Utilising data from online survey responses (N = 16) complemented by four online interviews and one face-to-face interview (N = 5) with NHS workers primarily during the height of the pandemic, this article offers a preliminary analysis on the challenges the UK’s healthcare workers faced through working in conditions of crisis management. The article particularly addresses NHS workers’ amplification of fear, anxiety, and exhaustion; the absence of widespread solidarity; and implications of the absence of coherent governmental messaging upon the workforce. We situate this discussion within a critical account of neoliberal political economy, the theoretical framework of social harm, and the absence to explicate the harmful conditions of the pandemic’s frontline. While the data are confined to the UK’s NHS workers, its findings are relevant to other countries across the world that enacted similar responses to deal with COVID-19.

Suggested Citation

  • Anthony Lloyd & Daniel Briggs & Anthony Ellis & Luke Telford, 2024. "Critical Reflections on the COVID-19 Pandemic from the NHS Frontline," Sociological Research Online, , vol. 29(1), pages 83-100, March.
  • Handle: RePEc:sae:socres:v:29:y:2024:i:1:p:83-100
    DOI: 10.1177/13607804231156293
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/13607804231156293
    Download Restriction: no

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1177/13607804231156293?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Rowena Crawford & Richard Disney & Carl Emmerson, 2015. "The short run elasticity of National Health Service nurses’ labour supply in Great Britain," IFS Working Papers W15/04, Institute for Fiscal Studies.
    2. Lee Jones & Shahar Hameiri, 2022. "COVID-19 and the failure of the neoliberal regulatory state," Review of International Political Economy, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 29(4), pages 1027-1052, July.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Kalb, Guyonne & Meekes, Jordy, 2024. "Nursing before and after COVID-19: Outflows, Inflows and Self-Employment," IZA Discussion Papers 16772, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    2. Rajiv Kumar, 2023. "Taking the developmental state seriously: Why South Korea outperformed neoliberal regulatory states in rapid coronavirus disease 2019 vaccinations and saving lives," International Area Studies Review, Center for International Area Studies, Hankuk University of Foreign Studies, vol. 26(4), pages 319-340, December.
    3. Moscelli, G.; & Sayli, M.; & Mello, M.;, 2022. "Staff engagement, coworkers’ complementarity and employee retention: Evidence from English NHS hospitals," Health, Econometrics and Data Group (HEDG) Working Papers 22/25, HEDG, c/o Department of Economics, University of York.
    4. Anita Charlesworth & Sarah Lafond, 2017. "Shifting from Undersupply to Oversupply: Does NHS Workforce Planning Need a Paradigm Shift?," Economic Affairs, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 37(1), pages 36-52, February.
    5. Geoff Goodwin, 2024. "Uneven decommodification geographies: Exploring variation across the centre and periphery," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 56(3), pages 883-904, May.
    6. Anna Sokolova & Todd Sorensen, 2021. "Monopsony in Labor Markets: A Meta-Analysis," ILR Review, Cornell University, ILR School, vol. 74(1), pages 27-55, January.
    7. Moscelli, Giuseppe & Sayli, Melisa & Mello, Marco, 2022. "Staff Engagement, Coworkers' Complementarity and Employee Retention: Evidence from English NHS Hospitals," IZA Discussion Papers 15638, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    8. Moscelli, Giuseppe & Sayli, Melisa & Mello, Marco, 2022. "Staff Engagement, Job Complementarity and Labour Supply: Evidence from the English NHS Hospital Workforce," IZA Discussion Papers 15126, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    9. Serra-Sastre, Victoria, 2024. "Workplace violence and intention to quit in the English NHS," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 340(C).
    10. Stephen Duckett, 2022. "Public Health Management of the COVID-19 Pandemic in Australia: The Role of the Morrison Government," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 19(16), pages 1-32, August.
    11. Serra-Sastre, Victoria, 2024. "Workplace violence and intention to quit in the English NHS," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 121623, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    COVID-19; lockdown; NHS; social harm; work;
    All these keywords.

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:sae:socres:v:29:y:2024:i:1:p:83-100. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: SAGE Publications (email available below). General contact details of provider: .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.