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Assertive outreach: policy and reality

University of Nottingham and Nottinghamshire HealthcareTrust, Department of Sociology and Social Policy, University Park, Nottingham NG7 2RD, e-mail: Justine.Schneider{at}nottingham.ac.uk,

Toby Brandon, Programme Leader - Disability Studies

School of Health Community and Education Studies, Northumbria University

David Wooff, Director

Statistics and Mathematics Consultancy Unit, University of Durham

John Carpenter, Professor of Social Work and Applied Social Science

Centre for Health and Social Care, University of Bristol

Roger Paxton, Director of Psychological Services and Director of Research and Development

Newcastle, NorthTyneside and Northumberland Mental Health NHS Trust

Declaration of interest

This research was commissioned by the North East Assertive Outreach R&D Consortium.

AIMS AND METHOD

This survey set out to profile the case-loads of assertive outreach teams in North East England, to discover whether they were reaching the people for whom they were meant. A survey of case-loads of 29 assertive outreach teams was carried out using the MARC-2, HoNOS and GAS instruments. Findings were compared with earlier surveys of the case-loads of community mental health teams in parts of the same region.

RESULTS

Clients of assertive outreach teams proved to be at the more severe end of the spectrum on almost every measure: 95% were deemed ‘psychotic’and 30% had three or more admissions in the previous 2 years.

CONCLUSIONS

Assertive outreach teams in the North East are reaching the people they are meant to target. The effects of this shift on existing teams remain to be evaluated.

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