Danish and Norwegian hospital social workers cross-institutional work amidst inter-sectoral restructuring of health and social welfare

Abstract

Starting in the 2000s, Denmark and Norway have under gone extensive restructuring of the ir health - related social benefit programmes , including how they are governed . Several reforms have sought to enhance inter - sectoral collaboration . Aiming at ensuring patients’ faster return to work , policy makers have ins tituted economic incentives to both individual s and the health and welfare organisation s who handle them . Through an institutional logics approach , t his paper explores how h ospital social workers in these countries are experiencing the se changes . The ‘ social ’ part of post - treatment care and rehabilitation receives more attention in the Norwegian institutional set - up than in the Danish , and whilst challenges are experienced in both countries, in group interviews Danish social workers in particular expres s concerns about the implications of the accelerated return - to - work focus . In both countries, they report increasing difficulties in ‘ making their way through ’ the state - municipal bureaucracy . However, by d rawing on the formal health knowledge derived from medical settings and the symbo lic capital it bestows on them, they often manage to negotiate the work - and - welfare services , and t hereby transforming the social context for the patients