John MacArtney

@johnmacartney

Marie Curie Associate Professor
Sociologist of dying, palliative and end-of-life care, and bereavement.
bsky.app/profile/johnma…

University of Warwick warwick.ac.uk/fac/med/staff/… Joined September 2011

520 Following 614 Followers 1.6K Posts

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John MacArtney @johnmacartney May 23, 2024

Important new paper looking at the Covid-19 emergency public health period and its effects on hospice palliative care in @socscimed

@abiccles @KathrynAlmack @CattyRM @cathgrimley2

sciencedirect.com/science/articl…

#PEOLC #Hospices #covid19
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Paper title and authors:
MacArtney, J.I., Eccles, E., Fleming, J., Grimley, C., Dale, J., Almack, K., Mayland, C., Mitchel, S., Driscoll, R., Hammond, R., Tatnell, L., Roberts, L. (2024) Pandemic narratives in stories about hospice palliative care: The impact of Covid-19 upon ideals of timely, holistic care and quality of life. SSM - Qualitative Research in Health

Abstract:
Findings: We identified four ‘pandemic narratives’ (reaction; revision; resilience; (re)normalisation) in the participants’ accounts of hospice palliative care support in the first two years of the pandemic. In each narrative we explore how Covid-19 and the associated pandemic guidance affected what quality of life was understood to be; how what was considered to be timely care could change during the palliative care journey; and, how different ideas of holistic care were emphasised as the hospice and wider healthcare context changed.

Conclusion: This is the first-time stories about the first two-years of the Covid-19 pandemic from hospice patients, carers, staff and senior managers have been analysed together. We identified how the pandemic brought an existential challenge to ideas of what hospice palliative care is and could be. Our findings suggest that ‘living with covid’ will continue to affect hospice palliative care’s ideals.

John MacArtney @johnmacartney Oct 10, 2024

This is such an important point, which I think many in palliative care are struggling to recognise, never mind address: x.com/johnmacartney/…

Clinically Vulnerable Families 💙💜💗 @cv_cev Oct 8, 2024

Current guidance for immune suppressed people is to:

↔️Ask visitors to keep their distance.
📥Take a lateral flow test
😷Ask them to wear a face covering
😷You may want to wear a face covering yourself

Cathy flags the juxtaposition of this advice with risks in healthcare.
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John MacArtney @johnmacartney Oct 10, 2024

Does palliative care have a problem with…“the c-word”?

My blog on @BMJ_SPCare

blogs.bmj.com/spcare/2024/10…

Screenshot of blog titled "Does palliative care have a problem with…'the c-word'?" with take home messages:
(1) Hospice staff are still struggling with the emotional implications of working through the emergency period and foreground ways of getting back to pre-2020 “normal”, but also recognise there is a ‘new normal’ that includes COVID affecting patients’ amount and quality of life left, which can get pushed to the background.
(2) This tension reflects the wider “living with COVID” approach in healthcare, which assumes people have time and capacity to recover from infections.
(3) The uncertainty staff expressed suggests that hospice palliative care needs to engage in more explicit reflection on what ways of mitigating COVID-19 best fulfil a core value of promoting quality of life left.

John MacArtney @johnmacartney Oct 3, 2024

Our paper may be focused on Covid-19 and hospice palliative care in the UK, but the issues we identify seem to resonate across healthcare sectors and nations...

Interview with "NIAID’s Jeanne Marrazzo on bird flu, mpox, and succeeding Fauci (statnews.com)"

Screenshot with highlighted quote from NIAID’s Jeanne Marrazzo, "But I thought to myself, it’s more that people just want to live a normal life. We really don’t want to go back. It was so painful. We’re still all traumatized."

John MacArtney @johnmacartney Oct 1, 2024

🚨New paper!🚨
tl;dr Hospice staff are uncertain how a “living with covid” approach helps promote quality of life left, but find it difficult to address as covid mitigations are strongly associated with negative emotions of the emergency period.
journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/26…
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John MacArtney @johnmacartney Oct 1, 2024

🚨New paper!🚨
tl;dr Hospice staff are uncertain how a “living with covid” approach helps promote quality of life left, but find it difficult to address as covid mitigations are strongly associated with negative emotions of the emergency period.
journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/26…
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Screenshot of paper title and abstract: “Backlash!”? A qualitative exploration of hospice palliative care staff’s ongoing experiences of “living with covid”