Principles of service provision in old age psychiatry

Abstract

The past decade has seen considerable changes in the shape of mental health services for older people. This has sometimes been so radical as to include the disappearance of the service as a separate entity, and yet this is at a time when the population of older people is growing and therefore it might be assumed that the demand for specialist services would also be increasing. How this can be so is the story of this chapter. There are two main strands to service provision to support mental health in older people. One is the general question of how mental health needs in this section of the population are to be met, and the other topic is the organization of specialist mental health services for older people. These strands are interwoven but also at risk of unwinding from each other. In this chapter, the focus is on the principles underlying services, rather than on much detail, partly because the situation will vary in different parts of the world but also partly because the way services are organized will continue to change, rendering anything too detailed obsolete in a short space of time. The chapter takes a largely UK, specifically England, focus. Many of the general issues are, however, global and also, as the UK has been one of the leaders in developing service models for old age psychiatry, it is likely that what happens there will be of interest to readers internationally. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2016 APA, all rights reserved)