The Practice Team

The social worker arrived in the middle of this time of pressure, when the practice team had begun to realise that preventive health-care meant reorganisation of their timetable and priorities. Together the health visitor and the social worker organised conferences on difficult cases at the practice and invited workers from other fields, thereby sharpening their awareness that these families required help from other people in the community as well as from the practice team. The social worker was surprised at this lack of communication and from 'being introduced' as the newcomer, she quickly started to introduce local social workers to the practice team-often they had worked in the same locality with the same patients for years without a personal meeting. Although informal discussions enabled the social worker and other members of the practice team to get to know one another and to learn something about their 'set' towards their work, this was not enough.