Marchand-Tonel, Claire <br/><br/>
The peripatetic shift in major surgery: putting patients into work and causing social inequalities 

 -  2022.<br/>							 
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<br/><br/> Through the study of an Enhanced Recovery After Surgery programme, we aim to show the effects that the shift to ambulatory care can have one nurses’ work. By analysing how this programme was rolled out in a for-profit clinic, we will show how the mix of medical innovation with organisational innovation provides a new division of labour between nurses, patients and their family circles. The outsourcing to patients and their relatives of organisational tasks, of low added value “care” activities with a strong individual and relational dimension, as well as the fact that they will have to be undertaken outside of hospitalisation time, makes it possible to reduce the variability of hospital care and thus, to guarantee a significant shortening of the length of stay. From the nurses’ side, the erosion of care work professional standards and the reduced length of hospital stays causes the work to be impoverished and things to become faster paced. On a wider scale, the rolling out of this type of programme in private for-profit clinics raises the question of their generalisation within the framework of reforms brought about by public action and risks creating social inequalities.