Further Studies on a Comprehensive Department of Psychological Medicine

Abstract

An analysis has been reported of the in-patient case-load of a comprehensive psychiatric department (Queen's Park Hospital, Blackburn) for the twelve months ending 28 February, 1961 (Silverman, 1961). This analysis showed that a department of 99 beds was coping with virtually 95 per cent. of the total in-patient problem from a population of approximately 250,000. However, the criticism has not uncommonly been made that, although a department of this kind might appear to function with reasonable success at the outset, the nature of the psychiatric case-load is such that, sooner or later, an excessive number of beds would become blocked by long-stay patients and the service would become unworkable in its original form. It was therefore decided to report and analyse admissions and discharges over a much longer period, and the statistics for the four years ending 31 December, 1965, were utilized for this purpose.