The Jigsaw Puzzle of Governance by Soft Terms in Healthcare: Capturing the Neoliberal Impact of Health Policy on Nurses’ Work

The aim of this article is to develop an understanding and explanation of the
relations and dynamics between current soft term-based policy and contemporary Danish health-care governance, and in addition establish a link between these dynamics and nurses work in practice. Based on my studies on Inter-professional collaboration, Coherence in healthcare, Patient safety in relation to adverse incidents, and Patient participation, a summative description of habitus is constructed. The studies follow the same methodological approach as praxeologic document-analysis within a similar theoretical framing from Pierre Bourdieu. The different works are unique, but at the same time parts of the jigsaw puzzle of a neoliberal management- and governance practice within the healthcare system. From the construction of habitus, I further discuss the impact of current value-based healthcare governance as the latest addition to this line of governance models. Findings from the analysis and synthesis of the material support that neoliberal politics through management- and governance as soft terms is built into the action of nursing in practice. It has a powerful symbolic impact on structures of social life and social action in relation between health-professionals, and in relation to the patients.

Keywords: habitus, management- and governance, neoliberalism, nurses, practice, symbolic
power.