Kōrero with Mandy Wilkinson

What is your background in Self-Management?

My background in self-management is personal. For myself, with my family, and also as a registered nurse previously working with people in rehabilitation settings. From there I moved into a research and academic role. My PhD explored the rhetoric and reality of long-term condition self-management in New Zealand from the perspective of policy, nurses and people who live with long-term conditions.

What is a long-term condition to you?

I could say that a long-term condition, and excuse my language, I'm going to borrow Lucy Hone's wording. She calls it that ‘bloody f****** thing’ or a BFT that has now become a part of your life, even though you didn't ask for it. But for me, a long-term condition is that BFT that I've now got to incorporate into my life or incorporate the impact of it into my life somehow and adjust my way of living, my expectations, my belief in what my future might be like.

What do you think is the key lens that you bring to the program grant?

I think the lens or where I come from, probably because of personal experience, is that it doesn't matter in which setting you are working. It's about relationship and about [really] listening to people.

For you, what is self-management support? What do you think matters most?

Being listened to and being able to, even if you can't do anything about what it is they're [healthcare providers and professionals] talking about, just the fact that you are being listened to, or that you're [as a healthcare professional] are listening to them. And you don't have to become best friends with the healthcare professional that you're working with. But it is, I guess when you feel a connection with somebody, you feel that you are that much more confident that they're actually caring about where you're at and what it is you need, even if that's not what they think might be needed. And it's that relationship that gives you the platform for then being able to discuss those differences of where my [as the person with a LTC] idea of where something might go for me, versus what somebody else [the healthcare professional] is thinking.

What do you see are key changes, innovations, or disruptions that might shift us away from conventional forms of self-management support for long-term conditions?

The Government [political decisions that affect systems, funding, people]. I mean, that's a really clear indicator, isn't it? Because of the [constant] changing between the Labour government and then National government [health delivery is affected as a result]. And it's been shown before that health should not be a political football.

And how does this relate to your PhD work on neoliberalism?

I guess it relates in the fact that it takes health away from the idea that it's a commodity that can be bought and sold.