“A Fine Race of Girls”: Occupational Therapy and Clinical Governance in the District Health Boards of Aotearoa New Zealand

Simple item page
aut.embargoNoen_NZ
aut.thirdpc.containsYesen_NZ
aut.thirdpc.permissionYesen_NZ
dc.contributor.advisorHocking, Clare
dc.contributor.advisorPayne, Deborah
dc.contributor.authorOrton, Yasmin Truelove
dc.date.accessioned2021-11-29T01:26:15Z
dc.date.available2021-11-29T01:26:15Z
dc.date.copyright2021
dc.date.issued2021
dc.date.updated2021-11-29T00:15:36Z
dc.description.abstractClinical governance frameworks were constructed in New Zealand District Health Boards (DHBs) to address increasingly visible problems in the delivery of a high quality, value for money, safe and client-focussed publicly-funded healthcare system, staffed by clinically competent professionals. Prominent discourses favour an environment where health workers are considered responsible and accountable for their conduct and practices, reflecting DHB preferred knowledge and beliefs. The construction of clinical governance frameworks incorporates technologies of discipline, both foregrounding the emergence of subject positions aligned with quality and safety, and acting as instruments of surveillance so that conduct at all levels of the organisation can be monitored and corrected. This research explores how clinical governance discourses circulating within DHBs have produced a change in the subjectivities of occupational therapists and how their resulting subject positions have affected their everyday practices with clients. A post-structural Foucauldian discourse analysis methodology was used to identify the prominent discourses within a range of documents from two moments in time: just after the emergence of DHBs in New Zealand (2003-05) and twelve years later (2015-17), to make transparent changes in occupational therapist subject positions and practices. Research goals were twofold: firstly, to identify both dominant and receding discourses impacting the formation of occupational therapy subject positions; secondly, to reveal how occupational therapist subject positions influenced what practitioners did in the name of occupational therapy in New Zealand DHBs. Findings suggest that clinical governance frameworks have produced changes in the behaviour and practices of occupational therapists working in the DHBs. Subject positions whereby they engage in and demonstrate responsible, accountable and competent practice, risk minimisation, quality improvement, value for money, and client-centred behaviours and practices are foregrounded. Their practice extended beyond face-to-face client interventions, to include participation in activities which ensured the system as a whole conformed with discourses that prioritised efficiency and value for money across a population through standardisation of processes and focus on core practices. Coveted professional occupational therapy subject positions embracing a holistic, problem-solving, compassionate and individual approach somewhat receded, but appeared under certain conditions when the therapists exhibited resistive behaviour. Occupational therapists now hold two complex jobs: their front-line face to face patient intervention, and their behind-the-scenes quality, efficiency and risk management on behalf of the organisation. This means that they have to ‘walk the line’ between valued professional subject positions and those preferred by the DHB. It is an ethically and professionally tricky path to navigate. Serious engagement in reflective practices through external, confidential supervision as well as application of political reasoning through occupational justice activities are possibilities for future discussion.en_NZ
dc.identifier.urihttps://hdl.handle.net/10292/14745
dc.language.isoenen_NZ
dc.publisherAuckland University of Technology
dc.rights.accessrightsOpenAccess
dc.subjectClinical Governanceen_NZ
dc.subjectOccupational Therapyen_NZ
dc.subjectPolitical Actoren_NZ
dc.subjectOccupational Justiceen_NZ
dc.subjectBiculturalismen_NZ
dc.subjectEquityen_NZ
dc.subjectFoucaulten_NZ
dc.subjectDistrict Health Boardsen_NZ
dc.subjectDiscourse Analysisen_NZ
dc.subjectSubject Positionsen_NZ
dc.subjectNew Zealanden_NZ
dc.subjectAotearoaen_NZ
dc.subjectAllied Healthen_NZ
dc.subjectClinical Leadershipen_NZ
dc.subjectNeoliberalismen_NZ
dc.subjectResistanceen_NZ
dc.subjectSupervisionen_NZ
dc.title“A Fine Race of Girls”: Occupational Therapy and Clinical Governance in the District Health Boards of Aotearoa New Zealanden_NZ
dc.typeThesisen_NZ
thesis.degree.grantorAuckland University of Technology
thesis.degree.levelDoctoral Theses
thesis.degree.nameDoctor of Health Scienceen_NZ
Files
Original bundle
Now showing 1 - 1 of 1
Thumbnail Image
Name:
OrtonY.pdf
Size:
16.53 MB
Format:
Adobe Portable Document Format
Description:
Thesis
Download
License bundle
Now showing 1 - 1 of 1
Thumbnail Image
Name:
license.txt
Size:
889 B
Format:
Item-specific license agreed upon to submission
Description:
Download
Collections
Doctoral Theses