Social workers in elderly care face different challenges in their daily work. The challenges affect the social worker´s work differently in relation to their discretion. The aim of this study has therefore been to investigate what challenges social workers in elderly care experience and how different challenges affect their discretion. Interviews have been done in order to fulfill the aim of this study. Six interviews were conducted. This study is based on Lipsky´s theory of street-level bureaucrats and their discretion. This study is furthermore also based on professiontheories by Thomas Brante and Peter Dellgren. They discuss what a profession is and how the discretion can be affected. In the results it appears that social workers experience challenges with cooperation, guidelines, the clients needs and with the economy but they also experience challenges with the discretion itself. The results show that social workers can use their discretion in some cases and in other cases are they limited due to challenges such as guidelines, economy and the client's needs because of politics. The guidelines can limit their assessments regarding which interventions they can grant. The economy can affect their work indirectly for instance when there are no places in daily operations. Collaboration is also a challenge when several professions are involved.