HC Deb 08 February 1988 vol 127 c97W
Mr. Irving

To ask the Secretary of State for Social Services how many places in hospital hostels or their equivalent are available in each district health authority.

Mrs. Currie

"Hospital hostel" is the name that has been given to a form of accommodation commended in the 1975 White Paper "Better Services for the Mentally Ill" (Cmnd. 6233) in which a small group of long stay patients requiring 24-hour medical and nursing supervision are provided with in-patient care in an informal domestic environment. We intend such units to form a permanent part of district psychiatric services; a number of evaluations have reported encouragingly on the quality of life obtained. I regret that present statistics do not distinguish places in this type of accommodation from other accommodation for psychiatric in-patients.

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