ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the historic development of hospital social work, from its nineteenth-century origins in the work of hospital almoners through to the recent contemporary era, in which the care management model is dominant. The story of hospital work is one of a rise and fall in terms of both its status within the wider occupation of social work and its standing among other occupational groupings within the hospital. Paying heed to the history of social work in hospitals is instructive because it reminds us of the currently unfulfilled potential social work has as a contributor to health care services, and because it contains lessons that must be understood if social work with older people in general is to advance itself beyond the primarily administrative purposes upon which it has been based since the advent of care management.
