ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the nature of the hospital social work role and the way hospital social workers accomplish their work, examining the tasks they undertake and the systems which organise and control their practices. I argue that the role of the contemporary hospital social worker is essentially to fulfil a series of bureaucratic functions related to arranging the care of the patient after discharge. The term ‘bureaucratic’ is to be understood in the Weberian sense, in which there is a rigid allocation of labour, a hierarchy of authority and regular or continuous execution of assigned tasks by those qualified to perform them. Analysis of the key tasks performed by the HSWs will demonstrate the extent to which the bureaucratic system dehumanises patients and encourages dehumanising practices by HSWs. This is not to suggest that the HSWs observed should be considered officious or unfeeling but rather to highlight how the bureaucratic system in which they work restricts the forms of practice in which HSWs can engage. Despite the restrictions, HSWs retain some discretion in how they approach their work and their use of this discretion – both on behalf of patients and in their own interests – will be explored.
