© British Association of Social Workers
The Referral Process: A Study of Working Relationships between Antenatal Clinic Nursing Staff and Hospital Social Workers and their impact on Asian Women
Paul Iles previously taught social psychology at Bradford and Ilkley Community College and Bradford University, and organizational behaviour at Huddersfield Polytechnic. He is now Lecturer, Human Resource Strategies at the Open University School of Management. Randhir Auluck formerly worked as a social worker for Coventry Social Services Department. She is now a Senior Lecturer in the Women and Work Programme at Coventry Polytechnic.
P. A. lles. Open Business School, Open University School of Management, Walton Hall, Milton Keynes MK7 6AA.
Summary
A Study of an intervention in a Bradford hospital antenatal clinic designed to improve working relationships between nursing staff and hospital social workers is described. A statistical analysis indicated that referral rates from the antenatal clinic were rather low, especially for women of Asian origin. Questionnaire and interview survey data established the importance of nursing staff perceptions of both the social work role and of Asian women clinic users as important determinants of whether nurses made a social work referral. Survey feedback to social work staff led to the physical placement of a social worker at the clinic booking-in sessions, in order to improve working relationships between nurses and social workers and thereby hopefully improve referral rates. This intervention was relatively unsuccessful, and this relative failure is related to the literature on interorganizational development and inter-agency team building in order to identify factors which might make for success in inter-agency collaborative projects.