An evaluation of the implementation of a liaison service in an A&E department

This paper describes the results of an evaluation of a multidisciplinary liaison service based in an A&E department of a district general hospital in South Wales. The aims of the services were to increase the rate of referral for psychosocial assessment of individuals who presented at the department following acts of deliberate self-harm and to increase the number of such assessments completed within 24 h. The paper describes the context in which such a service was developed and outlines how this preliminary evaluation was completed. Data were collected from hospital records, over two corresponding five-month time-periods, in the year before the implementation of the service and the year following implementation of the service. The results show that the implementation of the service led to a statistically significant increase in the rate of referral for assessment by accident and emergency staff. Amongst other positive outcomes, the rate of repeat presentations was reduced for the period of one year following initial presentation. The implications of these results are discussed in relation to other research in the area and the suggestion is made that nursing staff may be more clinically and cost effective in completing psychosocial assessments in A&E departments than medical staff.