Rising Demand and Distress in Emergency Care

As emergency departments and ambulance services face rising demand, a considerable share of patients present with needs classified as 'non-urgent', generating strain, frustration and moral judgement across care systems. The first of its kind to apply Bourdieusian field theory to emergency care, this book analyses how changing classificatory practices reshape professional boundaries, expectations of care and notions of legitimate urgency. Using an in-depth case study of emergency care services in a German city, the book reveals emergency care as a contested social field in which struggles over meaning, authority and moral worth occur and reproduce institutional inequalities. Moving beyond debates on workload and safety, this book shows how rising demand transforms not only service delivery, but also the social configuration of emergency care.