Coordinating First Aid Provision: A Qualitative Study Exploring the Multiplicity of Categories at the Great North Run.
Sociology of health & illness · 2025-10-01 · Qualitative study
Abstract
First aid is an under-investigated category of the emergency care system, with much research focusing on ambulance crews and emergency service departments. Historically, first aid research has been dominated by psychological responses of individuals (e.g., actions of the bystander or the individual's willingness to act in a situation). This study takes a different approach to studying first aid by examining the nature in which provision is situated. Using ethnographic data from a study based at the Great North Run (GNR), the analysis follows one patient's journey through treatment to show it is the dynamic interplay of multiple schemes that structure first aid response at various stages of treatment. These schemes assign the patient to particular spaces and times, demonstrating a spatial-temporal aspect of these infrastructures. Additionally, these tools inform first aiders' decision-making, drawing them into 'risk work' type of performances. In bringing together this ethnographic material and sociological debates on standardisation tools, I reveal that the interplay and enactment of these schemes represent an extension of the systems of value that underpin the prioritisation of patients beyond the clinic and out into the community.