Nursing homes have had better routines, training of personnel, and access to testing and PPE during the coronavirus pandemic than the picture painted in the media.

The bereaved felt that they maintained a bond with their deceased family member through diaries that had been kept for the patients during their stay in ICU. The diaries also helped impart structure on a chaotic time and made it easier for the bereaved to vent their feelings.

Guidelines that were not regarded as professionally sound, logical and relevant or in keeping with one’s own clinical experiences or feelings were more difficult to follow.

Close relatives help patients to live at home longer and are an important resource for the welfare state. But they can also contribute to an unfair allocation of nursing home beds by advocating for their own family members.

Recruitment to the Cardiac Rehabilitation Programme seems to be somewhat random and ‘the main concern is to get the patients on the list’. Health professionals should communicate better among themselves and prepare guidelines for recruitment.

Healthcare personnel in interdisciplinary teams believed that registered nurses made a distinct and  recognised contribution to the collaborative effort. In particular, they valued the registered nurses’ somatic knowledge and their milieu therapy expertise.