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Organizing health inequalities?: employee-driven innovation and the transformation of care

Organizing health inequalities?: employee-driven innovation and the transformation of care
Organizing health inequalities?: employee-driven innovation and the transformation of care
This paper responds to calls for new approaches to understanding and intervening in health inequalities and in particular for attention to the processes and relations that mediate structural inequality and everyday outcomes. Our contribution focuses on the part that healthcare organizations play in this. We draw on organizational sociology, which theorizes that whilst organizational structures, cultures and practices may appear neutral - and rely for their legitimacy on this - they may, in fact, operate in the interests of some social groups and less in the interests of others. This proposition is worked through new empirical research on employee driven innovation in the UK National Health Service. In both our case studies, front-line staff working with some of the most vulnerable citizens had identified the organization of care as both part of the problem and – potentially – part of the solution. In tracing their efforts to change the organization of care, we learn more about what it might take to mobilize resources in support of those whose lives are most affected by health inequalities.
1360-7804
3-20
Halford, Susan
0d0fe4d6-3c4b-4887-84bb-738cf3249d46
Fuller, Alison
0b5ba9fd-c1af-448d-8dba-c5dfaa515702
Lyle, Katy
ff88e501-884c-423a-8050-f915fc19f0a8
Taylor, Rebecca
5c52e191-4620-4218-8a61-926c62e087c5
Halford, Susan
0d0fe4d6-3c4b-4887-84bb-738cf3249d46
Fuller, Alison
0b5ba9fd-c1af-448d-8dba-c5dfaa515702
Lyle, Katy
ff88e501-884c-423a-8050-f915fc19f0a8
Taylor, Rebecca
5c52e191-4620-4218-8a61-926c62e087c5

Halford, Susan, Fuller, Alison, Lyle, Katy and Taylor, Rebecca (2019) Organizing health inequalities?: employee-driven innovation and the transformation of care. Sociological Research Online, 24 (1), 3-20. (doi:10.1177/1360780418790272).

Record type: Article

Abstract

This paper responds to calls for new approaches to understanding and intervening in health inequalities and in particular for attention to the processes and relations that mediate structural inequality and everyday outcomes. Our contribution focuses on the part that healthcare organizations play in this. We draw on organizational sociology, which theorizes that whilst organizational structures, cultures and practices may appear neutral - and rely for their legitimacy on this - they may, in fact, operate in the interests of some social groups and less in the interests of others. This proposition is worked through new empirical research on employee driven innovation in the UK National Health Service. In both our case studies, front-line staff working with some of the most vulnerable citizens had identified the organization of care as both part of the problem and – potentially – part of the solution. In tracing their efforts to change the organization of care, we learn more about what it might take to mobilize resources in support of those whose lives are most affected by health inequalities.

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Organizing Health Inequalities final (6) - Accepted Manuscript
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More information

Accepted/In Press date: 26 June 2018
e-pub ahead of print date: 30 August 2018
Published date: 1 March 2019

Identifiers

Local EPrints ID: 429642
URI: http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/id/eprint/429642
ISSN: 1360-7804
PURE UUID: ae92e1a1-5f9b-4de8-86d1-d5d4f45dd55e
ORCID for Rebecca Taylor: ORCID iD orcid.org/0000-0002-8677-0246

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Date deposited: 02 Apr 2019 16:30
Last modified: 16 Mar 2024 06:50

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Contributors

Author: Susan Halford
Author: Alison Fuller
Author: Katy Lyle
Author: Rebecca Taylor ORCID iD

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