A second survey of Scottish emergency psychiatry

To survey NHS services providing emergency psychiatric assessment in Scotland and to compare the findings with those of the survey conducted 8 years ago.

Postal and telephone questionnaire of all primary care trusts, the one integrated trust and three Island Health Boards in Scotland.

All parts of Scotland provide a 24 hour service for the assessment of psychiatric emergencies. There is a range of multidisciplinary responses during office hours with a total of 75 multidisciplinary Community Mental Health Teams, 18 Community Psychiatric Nursing Teams, 11 liaison psychiatry teams and one dedicated emergency team. However, for most of the week, the service is provided by a duty basic grade doctor in each area with the exception of Orkney.

Planning the most appropriate emergency and crisis service for any population depends on suitable data being available. Eight years after the first survey there is still no systematic collection of data on emergency contacts in Scotland. The systematic collection of National data is required for effective audit, planning and development of these services. The working definitions proposed in the first survey would be suitable for coding.