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Tomlinson on alcohol and drugs

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 January 2018

Hamid Ghodse*
Affiliation:
St George's Hospital Medical School, Tooting, London SW17 0RE
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Recognition of the problem

Sir Bernard Tomlinson's Report of the Enquiry into London's Health Service, Medical Education and Research (1992) starts with an excellent analysis of the particular problems associated with providing health care in the capital with its high density and turnover of population and disproportionate burden of severe deprivation. He emphasises the particular problems that arise because of the flow into London of vulnerable people with mental illness, drug addiction problems and alcoholism, many of whom are homeless. The consequent difficulties are compounded by the fact that primary health care and community services are poorly developed in comparison with elsewhere in the country and may not be easily accessible to those who need them most. Inadequacies in comprehensive service provision contribute to the high usage of accident and emergency departments as providers of primary health care, where community nursing services are expensive because of higher staff costs and where the characteristics of the patient population referred to above, make maintaining effective contact very difficult.

Type
Keynotes
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 © Royal College of Psychiatrists 1993

References

General Medical Council (1991) Undergraduate Medical Education: A Discussion Document. Google Scholar
Ghodse, A. H. (1978) The attitudes of casualty staff and ambulance personnel towards patients who take drug overdoses. Social Science and Medicine, 12, 341346.Google Scholar
Making London Better (1993) Lancs: HMSO.Google Scholar
Royal College of Psychiatrists (1992) Mental Health of the Nation: The Contribution of Psychiatry. The Royal College of Psychiatrists Council Report. Google Scholar
Simpson, A., Jones, M. & Ghodse, A. H. (1993) Evaluation of a drug and alcohol liaison service in a general hospital. (in press).Google Scholar
Tomlinson, Sir Bernard (1992) Report of the Enquiry into London's Health Service, Medical Education and Research. London: HMSO.Google Scholar
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