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‘Sorry, no beds’: a problem for acute psychiatric admissions

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 January 2018

D. Hollander  and
M.S. Slater
D. Hollander
Affiliation:
Bloomsbury & Islington Health Authority, Whittington Hospital, Highgate Hill, London N19 5NF
M.S. Slater*
Affiliation:
The Royal London Hospital, Whitechapel Road, London E1 1BB
*
∗Correspondence
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Abstract

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Perceived difficulty in obtaining hospital admission for acute psychiatric patients was investigated in one health region using a self-reporting method. Over 17 months both inner city and rural districts reported a total of 327 episodes of difficulty in finding a bed. One hundred and six (32%) of reported cases could not be admitted, the remainder being admitted to a ‘leave’ bed, a bed booked for another patient, or elsewhere, solutions likely to compromise care. Attempts to locate a vacant bed required numerous telephone calls and led to considerable delays. Thirty-nine (12%) of the patients were described as particularly ill, but five of them absconded during the prolonged search for a bed, and a further 17 had to remain in the community, pending a vacant bed, including two aggressive and eight suicidal patients. Considerable under-reporting was confirmed. Possible consequences of the situation are discussed.

Type
Original papers
Information
Psychiatric Bulletin , Volume 18 , Issue 9 , September 1994 , pp. 532 - 534
Creative Commons
Creative Common License - CCCreative Common License - BY
This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC-BY) license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
Copyright
Copyright © Royal College of Psychiatrists, 1994

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