Who Cares Wins - Royal College of Psychiatrists

4
Who Cares Wins
Improving the outcome for older people admitted to the general hospital:
Guidelines for the development of liaison mental health services for older people.
This report draws attention to the neglected clinical problem of mental disorder affecting older people
admitted to general hospitals and calls for the development of specialist liaison mental health services
for older people. It takes account of the best level of evidence where it applies to older people.
Older people occupy two-thirds of NHS beds and 60% of older people admitted to general hospital will
have or develop a mental disorder. This mental disorder will predict a poor outcome for the older person
and the service.
The present delivery of mental health services for older people in general hospitals is by the process of
consultation. The superior method of multidisciplinary liaison is established for working age adults as a
developed speciality. This approach should be established for older people and a failure to do so
represents an ageist policy.
Better management of these disorders improves outcome and this has major implications for the care
of older people, the efficiency of acute hospitals and the utilisation of health and social care resources.
We believe that any strategy to improve the performance of acute hospitals is seriously deficient if it
ignores the mental health needs of older people.
We urge acute hospital trusts, older peoples' mental health services and commissioners of health and
social care to regard carefully the care of mentally disordered older people in general hospitals and
work together to improve their outcome.
Who Cares Wins
Working Group for Liaison Mental Health Services for Older People,
Faculty of Old Age Psychiatry, Royal College of Psychiatrists.