Vad är en utmaning för biståndshandläggare? En kvalitativ studie om utmaningar i utredning- och bedömningsprocessen hos biståndshandläggare inom äldreomsorgen

Sammanfattning: The purpose of this study was to gain an increased knowledge and understanding of the challenges occurring in care managers’ work to assess needs of assistance among elderly people in Sweden. Further, the aim was to investigate how the work process has been affected due to supplementary challenges caused by the pandemic. The study is based on qualitative interviews with six care managers working within the Swedish elderly care. The interviews were conducted with care managers from different municipalities in Sweden in order to identify a wider range of similarities and differences occurring in the assessment process. The theoretical framework used, draws on analytical concepts from Lipsky’s theory on street-level-bureaucracies, and Weber’s concepts of organizational rationality. The results confirm previous research findings underlining the necessity of street-level-bureaucrats to successfully manage the balance between the needs of individual service users with organizational demands in order to grant the individual assistance and care of quality. Further, different standardized temples used to assess needs of elderly people, which has been implemented in the elderly care later years, support the case manages to acknowledge and meeting individual needs, in spite of the various challenges existing. Hence, these measures help to visualize the value rationality of the service users.