§ Mr. Irvingasked the Secretary of State for Social Services what accommodation is planned for long-term patients currently occupying psychiatric beds in district general hospitals.
§ Mrs. CurrieWe have made it clear to health authorities that they must provide suitable in-patient accommodation for all their long-term patients for whom this is more appropriate than community care.
District general hospital psychiatric units are not designed to provide long-stay care and most contain few or no long stay patients. A number of patients admitted. by such units will be found, after assessment and short-term treatment, to need continuing care, but those concerned will normally seek to provide this outside hospital, with the help of the social services authorities; they will make arrangements for care in a group home, sheltered lodgings, and so on. The numbers for whom such community care is unsuitable, and who therefore remain as in-patients in the unit, though small, tend gradually to accumulate, and we are anxious that health authorities should give more attention to providing accommodation specifically for this group.
Three districts (Camberwell, Southampton and South Manchester) have already provided such accommodation in the shape of a "hospital hostel" as discussed in the 1975 White Paper—that is, a small hospital unit providing 24-hour nursing supervision in a domestic atmosphere. As a first step we are proposing to arrange one or more seminars early next year so that National Health Service planners can consider the experience of these three districts, and discuss their own plans.