Abstract

Prejudice and discrimination against older people (ageism) is often based on stereotypical views of older age as a time of frailty, dependence and vulnerability (Butler, 1969). Older people are the most frequent users of hospitals and other health and social care services, certainly in the UK and many other countries in the global north. Existing research suggests that health and social care professionals sometimes rely on ageist stereotypes, for example characterising older people as sick, stubborn or difficult to work with (e.g. Ben-Harush et al., 2017). This paper reports on qualitative findings from interviews and online surveys undertaken with 108 members of hospital social work teams in the UK. Participants talked about the attitudes towards older people that they saw from health colleagues, health and social care systems, and national government. In many instances, they challenged these attitudes as ageist; however, they simultaneously resorted to some ageist generalisations when talking about their own work. I argue that hospital social workers naturally understand critical gerontology, but this orientation is imperfect and in need of further development as a profession. Reflexivity is essential to guard against developing a pervasive view of older people as sick and dependent, based on the inevitably skewed sample of the older population seen by hospital social workers and other healthcare professionals.