BASW England backs calls for social workers to be based in hospitals
BASW England has added its support to an open letter from the Adult Principal Social Worker Network to Health and Social Care Secretary, Steve Barclay calling for hospital social workers to be reinstated onto wards.
BASW England Professional Officer, Denise Monks commented:
“BASW wholeheartedly agrees that social workers in hospitals needs to be revived.
“Historically, social workers based in hospitals helped prevent people being readmitted to hospital by timely interventions to review existing care packages or mobilise support from families and others in the person’s network, meaning a person can be safe to return home from hospital directly from A&E to receive community health.
“We need to get back to this multi-disciplined approach and sharing of knowledge to avoid overuse of the medical model. Quite simply, social workers need to be able to work with people before they are discharged from hospital and assess their social care needs going forward ensuring the move is very much ‘person centred’ and not one size fits all.”