Description of placement

The liaison psychiatry services provide psychiatric care for in-patients and out-patients with the extremely wide range of complex medical problems seen in busy inner city teaching hospitals. In addition we provide a tertiary referral service for general practitioners, physician and surgeons across the North West Region.

The team consists of two professors (Creed and Guthrie), and 1 senior lecturers (Dickens) all of whom have part-time, honorary contracts as NHS consultants, and the latter 2 of whom are SpR trainers. In addition there are 2 SpRs (usually) and 4 Liaison nurses. The liaison nurses are base mostly in the A and E department and provide prompt assessment of psychiatric cases presenting through that department. In addition, these nurses provide an assessment service for urgent ward referrals.

Each consultant and SpR sees routine and urgent out-patient referral from general practitioners and hospital doctors from across the North West and also sees ward patients from the general hospital. Each consultant has developed close service links with a number of departments (Dickens – Rheumatology and Pain services, Guthrie – ITU and A&E).

In addition to attending routine out-patients clinics and attending routine ward referrals from across the hospital SpRs are expected to identify a service in which they can develop a close liaison service, attending ward rounds, out-patients clinics, seeing referrals promptly and taking part in the education of other healthcare professionals in matters relating to liaison psychiatry – e.g. screening and treating of psychological disorders, communications skills and on specific matters such as capacity.

Training is organised to ensure SpRs are exposed to clinical cases of increasing complexity to facilitate the development of expertise and confidence. Regular clinical supervision is provided by the trainer and additional supervision is readily available for complex cases. Emphasis is placed on multidisciplinary working and sharing skills with colleagues in the department of psychiatry and the general hospital.

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