This is an audit of 10 359 calls made to the national mental health helpline SANELINE between January 1996 and June 1998 aiming at describing the profile of suicidal callers.

More calls were by, or about, women. The most common age group for suicidal callers was 25–34 years, while those under 25 were least likely to call the helpline. Fifty-five per cent of all calls related to people suffering from depression, and 31% were for people with psychosis. The majority of sufferers who were planning suicide or were in the act of suicide at the time of the call were in contact with services, and almost three-fifths of sufferers reported problems with services.

There is an urgent need for innovative interventions targeting males and those under 25 years of age.

To describe Drayton Park, the first women-only residential mental health crisis facility in the UK and to investigate whether it is succeeding in its remit of providing a viable alternative to hospital admission. We randomly selected case files from 100 women admitted to Drayton Park since its opening and examined variables including demographic details, the reasons for referral, diagnosis and the source of referral.

Our findings show that the service is able to respond quickly to referrals and appears to be functioning safely. The women admitted have a relatively short length of stay, half suffer from depressive episodes and one-third have a relapse of schizophrenia or bipolar disorder.

This project appears to be succeeding in providing a safe alternative to hospital admission for women with severe and enduring mental health problems.

To compare how newspapers cover psychiatric and physical illness. We conducted a survey of relevant headlines in nine daily newspapers over a one-month period and judged whether the content was essentially positive, neutral or negative.

Over the one-month period, 213 article headlines about various aspects of medicine and 47 on psychiatry were identified. Ninety-nine (46%) of the former were critical intone as compared with 30 (64%) of the latter (odds ratio=4.42, 95% CI 1.64–11.94).We gained the impression that negative articles about physical medicine tended to criticise doctors whereas negative articles about psychiatry tended to criticise patients. Tabloid and broadsheet newspapers did not differ in their rates of negative coverage.

Psychiatry, psychiatrists and particularly psychiatric patients tend to be represented negatively in the newspapers. Psychiatrists should strive to influence the news agenda by proactively reporting positive messages, such as treatment advances.

To develop and introduce a drug treatment protocol for schizophrenia and to evaluate its effect on prescribing. Prescribing of antipsychotics was audited in January 1998. A prescribing protocol was then developed by a collaborative process involving all medical staff, and introduced in September1998. A second prescribing audit was conducted in February 1999.

The proportion of patients prescribed atypical drugs increased from 16.6% to 25.5%. Co-prescription of atypical and typical drugs was relatively uncommon compared with findings of other prescribing surveys. The use of anticholinergic medication was significantly more likely in patients receiving regular typical drugs alongside atypical agents than in those receiving atypicals alone.

Widely agreed prescribing protocols may promote improved prescribing practices. Co-prescription of atypical and typical drugs should be discouraged.

To investigate the recording of Mental State Examination (MSE) findings by psychiatric trainees as well as dating, timing and signing of entries into the clinical record. Data were collected from randomly selected case notes in three acute psychiatric units.

There was an initial decline of MSE recording from 69% to 58% in the first re-audit. Introduction of a standardised format and involvement of consultant trainers in the supervision of MSE recording led to an improvement to 83% in the secondre-audit. Adherence to medico-legal standards also improved.

The introduction of an MSE format and consultant supervision of records improved the standard of MSE recording as well as basic medico-legal requirements by psychiatric trainees.

We sought to determine the prevalence of long-term benzodiazepine prescribing in patients with schizophrenia occupying psychiatric rehabilitation beds. A cross-sectional survey was conducted in 11 National Health Service trusts.

Almost10% of patients occupying rehabilitation beds had a diagnosis of schizophrenia and received long-term benzodiazepines in combination with one or more anti-psychotics.

Our results are consistent with those of other authors and show that benzodiazepines are frequently used inthe long-term in patients with schizophrenia despite a lack of open acknowledgement of this practice and a paucity of objective data to support its efficacy.