Factors for the Board's reorganisation programme

The Board’s programme of reorganising mental illness services should emphasise factors which seem to us not to have been adequately recognised and are essential to the implementation of their policy: (i) the need to provide day places as well as beds in new district general hospital departments, (ii) the need for effective liaison with those responsible for supporting community services—hostels, day centres, group homes, old people’s homes and social work support—and (iii) the need for a positive policy for long-stay and elderly patients in mental illness hospitals, including alternative accommodation for such patients when existing specialist hospitals are replaced in the course of time.