The rise of liaison psychiatry: challenges and implications for sustainability.

Liaison or general hospital psychiatry is experiencing unprecedented expansion in the UK. A liaison psychiatry team in a typical general hospital may deliver savings of up to £5 million a year. However, liaison psychiatry faces challenges associated with this pace of change, with consequences for its long-term sustainability.

Management of refractory irritable bowel syndrome and comorbid mental ill-health: challenges, reflections and patient's perspective of life on the body-mind divide.

This complex case illustrates how blurred the divide between body and mind can be. In a patient with refractory irritable bowel symptoms, the emergence of new social problems exacerbate both psychiatric (anxiety and depression) and physical symptoms. Treatment of the physical symptomatology consisted of acute hospital treatments initially and subsequent primary care consultations. Psychiatric treatment consists of psychopharmacological (venlafaxine and mirtazapine) and psychotherapeutic approaches (cognitive behavioural therapy initially, and clinical hypnosis). The objectives of psychiatric treatment were to stabilise symptoms, reduce hospital admissions and foster self-management. The gains of management are presented. Social difficulties encountered over the period of treatment were legal processes to gain custody of son, bereavement, financial difficulties occasioned by stoppage of welfare benefits and legal processes involved in welfare appeal. Importantly, the patient's perceptive of treatment and care is presented. Detrimental effects that current welfare reforms in the UK may have on health are highlighted.

Psychiatric issues in palliative care: assessing mental capacity.

Issues surrounding capacity to consent to or refuse treatment are increasingly receiving clinical and legal attention. Through the use of 3 case vignettes that involve different aspects of mental health care in palliative care settings, mental capacity issues are discussed. The vignettes tackle capacity in a patient with newly developed mental illness consequent to physical illness, capacity in a patient with mental illness but without delirium and capacity in a patient with known impairment of the mind. These discussions give credence to best practice position where physicians act in the best interests of their patients at all times. It is important to emphasize that capacity decisions have to be made on a case by case basis, within the remit of legal protection. This is a fundamental requirement of the Mental Capacity Act 2005, England & Wales (MCA). The later is used as the legal basis for these discussions. The psychiatric liaison service is a useful resource to provide consultation, advice and or joint assessment to clinicians encountering complex dilemmas involving decision-making capacity.

Challenges in management of complex panic disorder in a palliative care setting.

This is a complex case of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) with comorbid panic disorder occurring in a woman in her mid-60s, with a family history of neurotic illness. PTSD arose in the context of treatment for terminal lung cancer. This patient who had been close to her father watched him die of cancer, when he was about her age. Her diagnosis and treatment prompted traumatic recollections of her father's illness and death that resulted in her voluntary withdrawal from cancer treatment. The goals of treatment were to promptly reduce anxiety, minimise use of sedating pharmacotherapy, promote lucidity and prolong anxiety-free state thereby allowing time for important family interactions. Prompt, sustained relief of severe anxiety was necessary to achieve comfort at the end of life. Skilled additions of psychological therapies (eye movement desensitisation reprocessing, clinical hypnosis and breathing exercises) with combined pharmacotherapy (mirtazepine and quetiapine) led to control of anxiety and reduction of post-traumatic stress.

Integrated care pathway for self-harm: our way forward.

BACKGROUND: Balancing pressures of the 4-h wait in Accident and Emergency (A&E) and the National Institute for Clinical Excellence (NICE) requirement for a psychosocial assessment (PSA) before leaving hospital for patients presenting with self-harm is a challenge. This paper suggests a new method for coping with this demand. METHODS: A score of 5 or above on the Modified Sad Persons Scale (MSPS), rated by general hospital staff, would result in an automatic admission to the general hospital for detailed PSA by the dedicated liaison psychiatry team the following day. RESULTS: Most patients are usually admitted due to medical concerns. Only a small number of patients needed further psychiatric inpatient admission. CONCLUSIONS: This integrated care pathway (ICP) is evidence of true multidisciplinary working resulting in mutually beneficial outcomes for both the acute and mental health trusts.