§ Mr. IrvingTo 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.