This guidance provides advice on commissioning liaison psychiatry services, specifying minimum and optimum service specifications, costs and quality outcome measures.
Download Liaison Psychiatry Services – Guidance
Background
There is evidence that for every £1 invested in the liaison psychiatry service models recommended in this guidance up to £4 of value is returned to the local health economy.
This guidance makes recommendations for commissioners of liaison psychiatry services on the minimum and optimum service configurations likely to return this value, and how to create the business cases and service specifications and performance management that follows.
It is accepted and supported by the evidence that over 25% of people admitted to our acute hospitals have a co-morbid mental health problem. Many more are drinking alcohol in a harmful way. Over 95% of people with dementia who are admitted are admitted in an emergency with 60% passing through emergency departments accounting for over 10% of all admissions. Self- harm remains the commonest cause of female admission in younger adults with over 150 000 emergency department attendances in England each year.
This guidance is part of a suite of four related documents, each with increasing levels of detail:
- Liaison Psychiatry Services – Guidance – sets out the key consideration to be made when commissioning liaison psychiatry services.
- An Evidence Base for Liaison Psychiatry – Guidance – sets out the evidence gathered from lay people, professionals, commissioners and the literature about what is needed from liaison psychiatry services.
- Developing Models for Liaison Psychiatry Services – Guidance – provides the technical information needed for commissioning liaison psychiatry services.
- Model Service Specifications for Liaison Psychiatry Services – Guidance – sets out exemplar service specifications for four models of liaison psychiatry.
This guidance was commissioned by the Strategic Clinical Network for Mental Health, Dementia and Neurological Conditions South West.
