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Why admit to a bed? Disposal of 1,000 referrals to a Regional Adolescent Service

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 January 2018

P. G. Wells
P. G. Wells*
Affiliation:
The Young People's Unit, Victoria Road, Macclesfield, Cheshire
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Twenty-five years ago, the Ministry of Health recommended that 20 to 25 beds per million population were needed for treating psychiatrically disturbed adolescents, a figure similar to that recommended by the Royal College in 1956/57. The College also recommended in 1976 the provision of one adolescent psychiatric team per half a million population. None of these norms has been met, nor are they likely to be this century. The decline in the teenage population may slightly reduce the need temporarily until the anticipated increase from the late ‘90s. Meanwhile, government financial restraints call for innovative and creative alternative solutions for the treatment of disturbed adolescents wherever possible without admitting to a residential unit. Indeed the pressure is so great that a number of adolescent units have already been closed, or their beds drastically reduced.

Type
Articles
Information
Psychiatric Bulletin , Volume 13 , Issue 7 , July 1989 , pp. 342 - 344
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, 1989

References

Masterson, J. (1967). The symptomatic adolescent 5 years later: he didn't grow out of it. American Journal of Psychiatry, 123, 1338–1345.Google Scholar
Wells, P. G., Morris, A., Jones, R. M. & Allen, D. J. (1978). An adolescent unit assessed: a consumer survey. British Journal of Psychiatry, 132, 300–308.Google Scholar
Wilkinson, G. (1988). I don't want you to see a psychiatrist. British Medical Journal, 297, 1144–1145.Google Scholar
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