Hostname: page-component-745bb68f8f-l4dxg Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-01-12T22:38:33.775Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Urgent psychiatric assessment in an inner-city A&E department

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 January 2018

Michael J. Crawford  and
Dora Kohen
Michael J. Crawford
Affiliation:
Institute of Psychiatry, London SE5 8AZ
Dora Kohen*
Affiliation:
Homerton Hospital, Homerton Row, London E9 6SR
*
∗Correspondence
Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Core share and HTML view are not available for this content. However, as you have access to this content, a full PDF is available via the ‘Save PDF’ action button.

Data on day time referrals to a liaison psychiatry team from an inner London accident and emergency department (A&E) were analysed over a two-year period. Despite the availability of local community-based alternatives for urgent assessment almost 5000 patients were seen. A quarter were self-referrals and two-thirds had had no previous contact with psychiatric services. The most common reason for referral was aggressive or disruptive behaviour. Characteristics of patients in this inner-city population suggest a continuing need for a high quality liaison service to the A&E department.

Type
Original Papers
Information
Psychiatric Bulletin , Volume 21 , Issue 10 , October 1997 , pp. 625 - 626
Creative Commons
Creative Common License - CCCreative Common License - BY
This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC-BY) license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
Copyright
Copyright © 1997 The Royal College of Psychiatrists

References

Bohland, J. (1984) Neighbourhood variations in the use of hospital emergency rooms for primary care. Social Science and Medicine, 19, 1217–1226.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
City and Hackney Community Services NHS Trust (1996) Mental Health Link (July).Google Scholar
Crawford, M. J., Kohen, D. & Dalton, J. (1996) Evaluation of a community based service for urgent psychiatric assessment. Psychiatric Bulletin, 20, 592–595.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Davison, A. G., Hildrey, A. C. & Floyer, M. A. (1983) Use and misuse of an accident and emergency department in the East End of London. Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine, 76, 37–40.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Harvey, C. A. (1996) The Camden schizophrenia surveys. I. The psychiatric, behavioural and social characteristics of the severely mentally ill in an inner London health district. British Journal of Psychiatry, 168, 410–417.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
House, A. & Hodgson, G. (1994) Estimating needs and meeting demands. In Liaison Psychiatry. Defining Needs and Planning Services (eds Benjamin, S., House, A. & Jenkins, P.), pp. 3–15. London: Gaskell.Google Scholar
Huxley, P. & Kerfoot, M. (1993) Variation in requests for social services departments for assessment for compulsory psychiatric admission. Social Psychiatry and Psychiatric Epidemiology, 28, 71–76.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Johnson, S. & Thornicroft, G. (1995) Emergency psychiatric services in England and Wales. British Medical Journal, 311, 287–288.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
NHS Trust Federation (1996) Inner City Mental Health. NHS Trust Federations Mental Health and Learning Disability Standing Committee.Google Scholar
Schuster, M. D. (1995) Psychiatric consultation in the general hospital emergency department. Psychiatric Services, 46, 555–557.Google ScholarPubMed
Royal College of Psychiatrists and British Association for Accident and Emergency Medicine (1996) Psychiatric Services to Accident and Emergency Departments. Report of a Joint Working Party of the Royal College of Psychiatrists and the British Association for Accident and Emergency Medicine. (Council Report CR43). London: Royal College of Psychiatrists.Google Scholar
Submit a response

eLetters

No eLetters have been published for this article.