An auto-ethnographic reflection on the nature of nursing in the UK during the COVID-19 pandemic

In this article I discuss the effects on the patient experience of isolation nursing during the CoronaVirus Disease (COVID)-19 pandemic. An unintended consequence of isolation nursing has been to distance patients from nurses and emphasise the technical side of nursing while at the same time reducing the relational or affective potential of nursing (Goddard, 1953). Such distanced forms of nursing (May et al., 2001; May et al., 2006) normalise the distal patient in hospital. I consider ways in which this new form of distanced nursing has unwittingly contributed to the continued commodification of nursing care in the British NHS. Autoethnography is used to describe and reflect on the illness experience, the experiences of caregivers and the sociocultural organization of health care. The findings discuss three areas of the illness experience: intimate nursing care; communication; the ‘distanced’ patient experience.

© The Author(s) 2021
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