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Urgent psychiatric assessment in an inner-city A&E department
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 02 January 2018
Abstract
Data on day time referrals to a liaison psychiatry team from an inner London accident and emergency department (A&E) were analysed over a two-year period. Despite the availability of local community-based alternatives for urgent assessment almost 5000 patients were seen. A quarter were self-referrals and two-thirds had had no previous contact with psychiatric services. The most common reason for referral was aggressive or disruptive behaviour. Characteristics of patients in this inner-city population suggest a continuing need for a high quality liaison service to the A&E department.
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- 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.
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- Copyright © 1997 The Royal College of Psychiatrists
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