‘All about the NHS and what about the rest of us?’: Exploring how low‐paid health and social care workers construct key stakeholders and account for the UK's response to the COVID‐19 pandemic

Abstract

Good practice on disaster response emphasises the importance of leadership and cohesive group identities. The COVID‐19 pandemic provided an opportunity to explore how low‐paid health and social care workers (HSCWs) accounted for the UK government's response, given worker's limited resources and disproportionate impact on their lives. Thirteen semi‐structured interviews took place with low‐paid HSCWs in England. Interviews were analysed using critical reflexive thematic analysis that is influenced by discursive psychology and membership categorisation analysis to explore the construction of identities and how they are used to account for the pandemic response. Three themes were generated from the data: (1) ‘They kind of knew what was coming’: UK government slow to react to pandemic developments; (2) ‘the right thing kept changing every 5 min’: Frustrations with changing guidelines and (3) ‘all about the NHS and what about the rest of us?’: Private sector HSCWs presented as inferior. This research highlights the importance of addressing the minimisation of low‐paid HSCWs through communications and access to material resources. There is a need to address economic disparities within the social care sector and for the UK government to plan future crisis management with all frontline staff at the forefront to form a collective identity.