Falling through the cracks: the invisible hospital cleaning workforce
Journal of Health Organization and Management
ISSN: 1477-7266
Article publication date: 19 September 2022
Issue publication date: 1 November 2022
Abstract
Purpose
This paper explores the role of hospital cleaners and their contribution to healthcare safety. Few studies have examined the activities and input of hospital cleaners, rendering them largely invisible in healthcare research. Yet, as coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) has demonstrated, this sizeable workforce carries out tasks critical to healthcare facilities and wider health system functioning.
Design/methodology/approach
Drawing on the work of Habermas, the authors examine the literature surrounding cleaners and quality and safety in healthcare. The authors theorise cleaners' work as both instrumental and communicative and examine the perceptions of healthcare professionals and managers, as well as cleaners themselves, of healthcare professionals and managers' role and contribution to quality and safety.
Findings
Cleaners are generally perceived by the literature as performing repetitive – albeit important – tasks in isolation from patients. Cleaners are not considered part of the “healthcare team” and are excluded from decision-making and interprofessional communication. Yet, cleaners can contribute to patient care; ubiquity and proximity of cleaners to patients offer insights and untapped potential for involvement in hospital safety.
Originality/value
This paper brings an overdue focus to this labour force by examining the nature and potential of their work. This paper offers a new application of Habermas' work to this domain, rendering visible how the framing of cleaners' role works to exclude this important workforce from participation in the patient safety agenda.
Keywords
Citation
Hacker, C.E., Debono, D., Travaglia, J. and Carter, D.J. (2022), "Falling through the cracks: the invisible hospital cleaning workforce", Journal of Health Organization and Management, Vol. 36 No. 8, pp. 981-986. https://doi.org/10.1108/JHOM-02-2022-0035
Publisher
:Emerald Publishing Limited
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