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North Staffordshire Community Beds Study: Longitudinal evaluation of psychiatric in-patient units attached to community mental health centres

2: Impact upon costs and resource use

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 January 2018

Alan Haycox ,
Louise Unsworth ,
Keith Allen ,
Richard E. Hodgson ,
Martyn Lewis  and
Anthony P. Boardman
Alan Haycox*
Affiliation:
Prescribing Research Group, Department of Pharmacology and Therapeutics, University of Liverpool
Louise Unsworth
Affiliation:
Prescribing Research Group, Department of Pharmacology and Therapeutics, University of Liverpool
Keith Allen
Affiliation:
Academic Department of Psychiatry, School of Postgraduate Medicine, Keele University, Staffordshire
Richard E. Hodgson
Affiliation:
Academic Department of Psychiatry, School of Postgraduate Medicine, Keele University, Staffordshire
Martyn Lewis
Affiliation:
Academic Department of Psychiatry, School of Postgraduate Medicine, Keele University, Staffordshire
Anthony P. Boardman
Affiliation:
Academic Department of Psychiatry, The Guy's, Kings College and St Thomas' Hospitals' Medical and Dental School
*
Dr A. P. Boardman, Academic Department of Psychiatry, 5th Floor, Thomas Guy House, Guy's Hospital, London SEI 9RT
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Abstract

Background

Innovative approaches to the provision of psychiatric care must justify their ability to improve the quality of life within the resource constraints imposed on psychiatry.

Aims

To examine the average costs per patient of the experimental and control group services.

Method

An individual patient costing methodology that identified, measured and valued all public and private resources.

Results

The experimental group was more likely to remain in contact with services over a 12-month period, had fewer acute readmissions and spent less time in acute in-patient units. There were significantly different levels and patterns of resource consumption between the groups and between the two separate catchment areas.

Conclusion

The cost analysis should be assessed in the context of the previous outcome analysis. It is likely, but not inevitable, that such units will increase the overall costs of care provision; this largely depends on the effectiveness with which such units are integrated into existing care provision.

Type
Papers
Information
The British Journal of Psychiatry , Volume 175 , Issue 1 , July 1999 , pp. 79 - 86
Copyright
Copyright © 1999 The Royal College of Psychiatrists 

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Footnotes

†

See Part I. pp. 70–78, this issue.

Declaration of interest

Support received from the North Staffordshire Health Authority and the Combined Health Care North Staffordshire NHS Trust.

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