ABSTRACT
This chapter begins with a brief scene setting description of the organisation and layout of the hospice or, as it officially wished to be known, a specialist palliative care unit. To aid clarity, throughout this chapter, the study site is generally described simply as a hospice. This might seem odd (is it a hospice or a specialist unit?). Nonetheless, as the Introduction records, the term hospice was colloquially used by all study site participants (even those who proclaimed the change in designation) and, in addition, and as will be seen, the nature and form of specialism remained a contested issue throughout the study period. Time frames (T1–T4) used in the study are then noted and problematised and – the main element of this chapter – findings are thereafter presented under two headings: ‘Structures and institutions’ and ‘Relations within the hospice’.
