This study aimed to develop an assessment tool measuring comprehensive interdisciplinary competence in end-of-life care (EoLC) and investigate its content, construct validity, reliability, and their correlates.

Items of the Comprehensive End-of-Life Care Competence Scale (CECCS) were developed according to a comprehensive core competence framework in EoLC and refined by a multi-disciplinary panel of experts. The psychometric properties were further tested through region-wide surveys of self-administered questionnaires completed by health and social care professionals in Hong Kong.

Participants comprised social workers, nurses, physicians, and allied health care professionals (445 participants in 2016, 410 in 2017, and 523 in 2018). Factor analysis validated the construct of the questionnaire which encompassed 26 items describing EoLC core competences in seven domains with satisfactory internal reliability (confirmatory factor analysis: χ2/df = 3.12, GFI = 0.85, TLI = 0.93, CFI = 0.94, RMSEA = 0.07; Cronbach's alphas ranged from 0.89 to 0.97): overarching value & knowledge, communication skills, symptom management, psychosocial and community care, end-of-life decision-making, bereavement care, and self-care. Higher perceived levels in these competences were correlated with a higher level of job meaningfulness and satisfaction (r ranged from 0.17 to 0.39, p < 0.01) and correlated with lower perceived stress (r ranged from –0.11 to –0.28, p < 0.05). Regression analysis found that age and work involvement in EoLC were positively associated with the perceived competences in all domains; professionals working in hospices reported higher levels of competence than workers in other settings; social workers showed lower perceived competences in symptom management, but higher levels in bereavement care than other health care professionals.

The validity and internal reliability of CECCS were demonstrated. The levels of perceived competences working in EoLC were significantly associated with professionals’ job-related well-being. Practically, there is still room for improvement in comprehensive competences among health and social care workers in Hong Kong.

In the last 30 years, elder abuse and neglect has been recognized as a social and health-related problem. The aim of this paper is to describe the phenomenon of elder abuse and neglect in a separatist faith-based society (ultra-Orthodox Jewish society—UOJS).

A qualitative-phenomenological study with 28 social workers who underwent in-depth semi-structured interviews based on an interview guide consisting of the following items: visibility of the elder abuse and neglect phenomenon in the ultra-Orthodox society, and dilemmas and sensitive issues that arise when working with this population.

Three main themes emerged: (1) Between the commandment to honor one's parents and concealment patterns: Cultural barriers to exposing the abuse and neglect phenomenon; (2) “Life is demanding:” The unique expression of abusive and neglectful behavior in the UOJS; (3) Culturally related dilemmas when intervening with cases of elder abuse and neglect.

Ultra-Orthodox Jewish cultural belief is a differentiating component in the context of elder abuse and neglect. Social workers need to develop a deep understanding of the unique characteristics of the phenomenon and cultural sensitivity to cope with it to address the well-being of older ultra-Orthodox Jews.

To understand the effects of Nurse Case Managers (NCMs) working in primary care in the English National Health Service (NHS) from multiple perspectives and how this new role impacts on social workers, this paper reports and discusses findings from a multi-level study of the role of NCMs working in primary care in the English NHS.

Case management as understood by the NHS is equivalent to key-worker type care management as understood by social workers. However, English health and social services are separately organised with different organisational principles; health services are free at the time of need, whereas social services are means-tested and access is restricted.

The study included reviews of evaluations and policy, a national survey of nurse case management in Primary Care Trusts (PCTs) and case studies in three purposively selected PCTs. The views and experiences of patients were collected through face-to-face and telephone interviews with 51 older people and their carers, and these experiences are illustrated. In this paper, we further draw on data reporting the views of NCMs and stakeholders from other disciplines and services.

The opinions of older people receiving nurse case management reveal the value of high intensity support to individuals with major health and social needs. The NCMs’ clinical expertise, the improved continuity of care they provided and the psychosocial support they offered, were all emphasised by older people or their carers. NCMs substituted for social workers in some cases, when the older person would not have been eligible for publicly funded social care or had declined it. In other cases, they supplemented social services by identifying unmet needs. In a third category of cases, they may have curtailed social services’ involvement by preventing hospital admission and social services’ involvement as a consequence. The implications of this from the viewpoint of other study participants are discussed.