I was a Social Worker in NSW Health working in both the Community Health and Hospital setting from 1978-2017. I am also a Social Work academic with Charles Sturt University.
My area of research interest is health service entry systems; how we can move from the street or our lounge into a health service when we need to. As health services become bigger and cost minimisation a dominant imperative new systems for managing access and entry are being introduced that streamline and prioritise.
An unintended consequence of this can be that people who are particularly needy have their access reduced. Typically a particular system becomes the only pathway in, usually this will be a call centre phone number.
This blog is for Social Work students who are doing field education placements in Health, or planning to work in Health. Practising Health Social Workers and other Social Work educators are welcome too.
Social Work in Health 