Wandering the Wards provides a detailed and unflinching ethnographic
examination of life within the contemporary hospital. It reveals the
institutional and ward cultures that inform the organisation and
delivery of everyday care for one of the largest populations within
them: people living with dementia who require urgent unscheduled
hospital care.
Drawing on five years of research embedded in acute wards in the UK, the
authors follow people living with dementia through their admission,
shadowing hospital staff as they interact with them during and across
shifts. In a major contribution to the tradition of hospital
ethnography, this book provides a valuable analysis of the organisation
and delivery of routine care and everyday interactions at the bedside,
which reveal the powerful continuities and durability of ward cultures
of care and their impacts on people living with dementia.
*Shortlisted for the Foundation for the Sociology of Health and Illness
Book Prize 2021*