Hostname: page-component-7c8c6479df-5xszh Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-03-29T10:17:11.133Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Psychiatric admission for homeless people: the impact of a specialist community mental health team

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 January 2018

Martin Commander*
Affiliation:
University of Birmingham, Department of Psychiatry, Northern Birmingham Mental Health (NHS) Trust Academic Unit, 71 Fentham Road, Erdington, Birmingham B23 6AL
Sue Odell
Affiliation:
University of Birmingham, Department of Psychiatry, Northern Birmingham Mental Health (NHS) Trust Academic Unit, 71 Fentham Road, Erdington, Birmingham B23 6AL
Sashi Sashidharan
Affiliation:
University of Birmingham, Department of Psychiatry, Northern Birmingham Mental Health (NHS) Trust Academic Unit, 71 Fentham Road, Erdington, Birmingham B23 6AL
*
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.

The difficulty in achieving good quality community mental health care for homeless people has received increasing attention during the last few years. Less consideration has been given to the provision of inpatient care. By comparing data collected before and after its inception, we examined the impact of a specialist community mental health team for homeless people on ‘no fixed abode’ admissions in Birmingham. Although the team was successfully involved in the admission and discharge process in a substantial proportion of cases, many admissions still took place out of hours and involved the police, while discharge was often against medical advice and occurred without follow-up. These findings and their implications for the provision of homeless services are discussed.

Type
Original Papers
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

Berry, C. & Orwin, A. (1996) No fixed abode: a survey of mental hospital admissions. British Journal of Psychiatry, 112, 10191025.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Commander, M., Odell, S. & Sashidharan, S. (1997) Birmingham community mental health team for the homeless. Psychiatric Bulletin, 21, 7476.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cowan, C. & Macmillan, F. (1996) No fixed abode – its definition in clinical practice. Journal of Mental Health, 5, 161165.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Craig, T., Bayliss, E., Klein, O., et al (1995) The Homeless Mentally Ill Initiative: An Evaluation of Four Clinical Teams. London: Department of Health.Google Scholar
Health Advisory Service (1995) People Who Are Homeless: Mental Health Services A Place in Mind. London: HMSO.Google Scholar
Herzberg, J. L. (1987) No fixed abode. A comparison of men and women admitted to an East London psychiatric hospital. British Journal of Psychiatry, 150, 621627.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sashidharan, S. P., Commander, M. J., Odell, S., et al (1995) West Birmingham Psychiatric Epidemiology Research Project. Report 1: Use of Specialist Mental Health Services. Birmingham: University of Birmingham.Google Scholar
Whiteley, J. S. (1955) Down and out in London: mental illness in the lower social groups. Lancet, 2, 608610.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wing, J. K. (1994) Mental illness. In Health Care Needs Assessment (eds Stevens, A. and Raftery, J.), pp. 202304. Oxford: Radcliffe Medical Press.Google Scholar
Submit a response

eLetters

No eLetters have been published for this article.