[Clinical geriatrics in the United Kingdom]

Great Britain is generally regarded as the cradle of clinical geriatrics and still deserves this reputation, even though under present conditions the integration of acute geriatric assessment, rehabilitation and long-term care in the hospital setting is far from satisfactory by Dutch standards, the more so as this means that modern nursing-home care does not get the chance to fully develop. A very positive aspect is the well-functioning of the geriatric chain of care, especially the links within and to the top level. The level of geriatric teaching in the universities and research in the clinical geriatric departments is certainly high in comparison to the Netherlands. An attempt is made to present a profile on the basis of impressions obtained during several working visits.