Patients in hospices in the UK and the Republic of Ireland may not be receiving appropriate psychiatric services, according to a study published in the Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine.
Dr Max Henderson, a psychiatrist and one of the study’s authors, said there was a clear gap between the level of service recommended by National Institute of Clinical Excellence (NICE), and the psychiatric care available in hospices. “There is an increasing awareness within palliative care that the mental wellbeing of a patient is an important aspect of their care. However, increasingly threatened funding to liaison psychiatry means the care of patients with advanced stages of the disease is being compromised by limited resources,” said Dr Henderson.
“The NHS must not focus on those with severe and enduring mental health problems such as schizophrenia to the detriment of patients with advanced disease.”
