Hospital Discharge is a key contemporary concern as the NHS comes under increasing pressure. Social Work has come under the spotlight as either a solution or an obstacle, with mounting calls for closer integration between health and social care (Community Care, 2012). The challenge of self-neglect is problematic for hospital-based social workers for a variety of reasons. Apart from the general complexities of self-neglect (Braye et al, 2011), this includes specific problems of identification and assessment in hospitals and the pressures associated with inter-professional work and hospital discharge imperatives.

These challenges will be discussed by outlining the findings of a small-scale qualitative research study on how social workers understand, assess and intervene with self-neglect, drawing out particularly the responses of hospital-based social workers.