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Considering the great need for palliative care in hospitals, it is essential for hospital staff to have palliative care knowledge. Palliative consultations have been shown to have positive effects on in-hospital care. However, barriers to contact with and uptake of palliative consultation advice are reported, posing a need for further knowledge about the process of palliative consultations. The purpose of this study therefore was to examine how palliative consultations in hospitals are practised, as perceived by consultants and health care professionals on receiving wards.

Focus groups with palliative care consultation services, health care personnel from receiving wards and managers of consultation services. Interpretive description and constant comparative method guided the analysis.

Variations were seen in several aspects of practice, including approach to practice and represented professions. The palliative consultants were perceived to contribute by creating space for palliative care, adding palliative knowledge and approach, enhancing cooperation and creating opportunity to ameliorate transition. Based on a perception of carrying valuable perspectives and knowledge, a number of consultation services utilised proactive practices that took the initiative in relation to the receiving wards.

A lack of policy and divergent views on how to conceptualise palliative care appeared to be associated with variations in consultation practices, tentative approaches and a bottom-up driven development. This study adds knowledge, implying theoretical transferability as to how palliative care consultations can be practised, which is useful when designing and starting new consultation services.

This study examined the kinds of work‐family conflict experienced by female married professionals with children in Hong Kong and the coping strategies they had adopted. Data were obtained through 50 in‐depth interviews. The results revealed the general ineffectiveness of coping strategies being used by married women professionals. The percentage of women who attempted to use positive coping strategies designed around job changes was low, possibly due to their reluctance in negotiating for family‐friendly organizational policies. It appears that companies in Hong Kong extend little support to working mothers in managing the work‐family interface. Implications of the findings for women’s career progressions are also discussed in this paper.

Married female professionals with children (n=50) were interviewed to examine their experience of work‐family conflict and the human resources policies they would like to see implemented at their workplace to assist them to balance their home and job demands. The results revealed that the traditional nature of the Hong Kong family, compounded by long working hours, had led to an exhausting lifestyle for almost all the female married professionals. When asked about the HR practices that might be appropriate to help alleviate work‐family conflict, the overwhelming preference was “flexible hours” (n=30). Given these findings, it is suggested that changes in work patterns towards a flexible schedule would be beneficial for both employers and employees.