District nursing and social work: palliative and continuing care delivery.

The growing number of older people has seen a concomitant increase in the number of people with chronic conditions who require continuing and palliative care increasing the need for the relevant professional groups and organizations to work together. This paper reports on a multiple case study which explores the different ways that district nurses and social workers work in delivering palliative and continuing care. Each professional group operationalized their care differently across five themes: assessment, care delivery, focus of care, place of care and funding of care. The balance between care organization and care delivery needs to be addressed within emerging primary care delivery structures as primary care nursing moves towards case management for long term conditions.