PDF (PhD Thesis) - UWE Research Repository - University of the ...

As you become older or you become more experienced,
you have the confidence to admit how you felt whereas I think when
you‟re junior you lack that confidence, and maybe some
competence. I know I felt very much that way. I wanted to be seen
as competent and I wanted to be “good” and actually I still do now. I
found it really difficult to say, actually, I‟m not as good as I‟d like to
be at that. I think junior staff don‟t share so much. I don‟t know,
maybe not with us, maybe with themselves they do, in groups they
feel comfortable with. That‟s because they don‟t want to seem like
they don‟t know what they‟re doing. (1 st Co-inquiry meeting 25/1/05)
Tracey had been responsible for checking incident forms as part of her
previous clinical governance role and she observed:
I think very often people are not reporting (Incidents)
because they don‟t think people will listen or are not in a position
where people will listen and clinical governance is not well
understood even now all these years down the line……I could use
the system to my own benefit and I could make changes and have
an impact but of course not everyone realises that is the case. I had
to gather evidence and shout very loudly…You do shout loud
because if you see an event, you see a pattern or a theme you
make sure your staff fill out a form every time. (Final interview
28/6/06)
When I interviewed Lois at the end of the co-inquiry sessions (7/3/06) she
said she had often struggled in our co-inquiry group to share her practice
issues. Even though she recognised the group was supportive she found it
difficult to speak out preferring to listen to others‘ stories. Consequently I
wondered if I had made an assumption that people were not reflecting if
they did not verbalise it. Lois didn‘t always bring stories that were currently
challenging her but talked about safer things. She told me about her
daughter who was a nurse who shared her stories of practice only with her
close nursing friends. Lois‘s experience resonated with what the students
were telling me on work-based learning days at the university and co-
inquirers‘ observations. This made me aware of another tension; to what
extent is reflection sanitised when told to others in a working environment?
Was the private sphere of reflecting being appropriated as emotional and
cultural capital and this was being resisted because the workplace was not
171