[Quality of Psychiatric (Hospital) Care - Perspectives?]

Germany, in comparison to other countries, provides a good quality of services to distinct groups of patients. But as far as total expenditure for mental health services is concerned, it belongs to the top European states. The differentiation of services since the Expert Commission to the parliament (1975) was associated by fragmentation of the therapeutic alliances and the patient's relations in his or her personal social system. The management of intake to hospital treatment seems to need further improvement. Treatment paths which integrate distinct sectors are clinically tested in other countries and should be hold up as examples for politicians to further improve our mental health services. With the available resources, better and economically sound results could be reached. This is important for the future, a) because of increasing utilization of mental health treatment, b) to guarantee the quality of services for the chronic, severely mentally ill patients.