A hospital-based social education project is taken to mean a scheme in which a group of school pupils regularly spend some time each week in a hospital or similar institution. Two groups are involved in the organisation and ultimate success or failure of such a scheme: the school staff and the hospital staff. Two groups are expected to benefit primarily from the scheme as a result of contacts between them: the patients and the young people. The recognition and reconciliation of the sometimes conflicting aims and needs of the participants is the key to the success of the project.