Releasing the Potential of Nursing Labour

Abstract

The recent release of the "Report of the Ministerial Taskforce on Nursing: Releasing the Potential of Nursing" provides a useful point of reference to analyse again the changing division of labour in the production of health and sickness services in New Zealand following a period of significant reform. Sociological inquiry into the relationships between the various occupational groups engaged in the provision of health services has, in the past, tended to focus on the professionalising projects of the respective occupations, and on the contestation/cooperation at the 'closure boundaries' between those groups. This paper argues that, in the reformed health sector, with its cascade of principals and agents, output based contracts and contestable contracting; the historic form of analysis is adequate. A different form of analysis is needed to explore the new changing relationships both within and between the health occupational groups themselves; and secondly and perhaps more importantly, to analyse the changing relationships between the health industry occupations and the State.