§ Mr. GoodladTo ask the Secretary of State for Health (1) how many severely mentally ill patients he expects to be discharged from hospital into the community between now and 1991; what is the current cost of maintaining them in hospital; and what is his estimate of the additional cost of looking after them in the community;
(2) what is his estimate of the additional cost of caring for the severely mentally ill in the community over the cost of caring for them in hospital.
§ Mr. FreemanForecasts of future discharges from hospital of people with a mental illness are not made or collected centrally. The average inpatient cost per day in England for hospitals categorised "mental illness" in 1986–87, the latest year for which information is available, was £44.05 cash, equivalent to £308.35 per week. No comparable information is available centrally about the costs of caring for such patients outside hospital.