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A volunteer project for elderly people with mental health problems

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 January 2018

Jon Spear
Affiliation:
United Medical and Dental School Guy's Hospital, London
Hetty Kaanders
Affiliation:
Clinical Psychologist Lewisham and Guy's Mental Health Trust London
June Moulton
Affiliation:
Community Team for Mental Health in the Elderly
Joe Herzberg*
Affiliation:
Royal London Hospital (St Clement's), 2a Bow Road, London E3 4LL
*
Correspondence
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Abstract

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A volunteer project for elderly people with severe mental health problems and social isolation was developed with close links with a community mental health team. The functioning of this service is described from 1988–1995. The volunteers benefited from training and supervision from the professional community team, while the volunteers took over the role of monitoring, allowing the earlier discharge of these patients by the community team.

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

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