Table 2 Qualitative quotations on organisational unfairness

STRATEGY: Not having a choice feels negative

Entry level qualified nurse: ‘We felt it was an added burden we felt that we had no choice.’

Nursing assistant: ‘Though I do think there was an element of sort of Machiavellian sort of style management going on but I don’t think he was being malicious and that’s why I probably why I didn’t complain if I felt that I was being really victimised then I would have done but I think he just had a very unrealistic idea about his project and I think he was you know his management style was quite you know quite sort of what the word is exactly patriarchal quite sort of authoritarian.’

RESISTANCE: Patients don't want to

Nursing assistant: ‘But like I say some patients just don’t want that interaction some patients are too poorly to have the interaction.’

Entry level qualified nurse: ‘It came to a point where I think when most of the patients didn’t want to engage....Of course we couldn’t enforce them....So you go introduce yourself and say we’ll be meeting at such and such a point when the time comes and say well don’t I don’t want to talk about anything....Which makes it difficult....And very disheartening as well at times.’

RESISTANCE: Unfair task allocation

Nursing assistant: ‘people have said I went to university for three years if you expect me to make beds and clean..... You know I mean when you, you know you hear people saying oh about team, team work and all that you wouldn’t know team work if you were hit by Man United in a bus.’

Senior nurse: ‘And the turnover of patients is quite high so there’s always – so you would catch up the way we do it now – you would catch up and see your people in the morning and say hello – how are you – is there anything on your mind that you badly need to talk about? So they’ll have like 5 or 10 minutes and that’s about it and everything else is directed to the unqualified to do which is sadly not the right thing to so because you should really spend a bit more time with your patient but that’s how – how we are doing it now.’

RESISTANCE: Blame and resentment

Senior nurse: ‘Yeah that’s it and then it’s difficult because the motivated people are like well why are we not doing this today and then you get that kind of lack of consistency....And I think then people get quite angry about that and yeah.’

Nursing assistant: ‘And initially they, they were happy with this. And there wasn’t much resistance then it was when they actually seen us doing what we were doing. I think because we weren’t always working long days. Our initial shifts were four days a week it was I think it was half eight in the morning to half six. And, and I think people thought that that was not fair basically. So what it boils down people would be quite resentful and resist it in terms of, well – it’s jealous.’

Ward manager: ‘I think that you know people automatically feel really dumped upon actually, and because, as well, there is another thing about people not really being aware of the bigger picture - I think so they just see it as well, I’m being asked to do my job plus run a group everyday…..’