Follow up of People Recently Discharged From Psychiatric Inpatient Care

In this letter to the editor, the authors report on an initiative to improve the follow-up assessment of patients within the first week after discharge from inpatient care. There was one suicide during the initial audit period & no suicides occurred in the second audit phase. There were no records of non-fatal deliberate self-harm during either period. Significant improvements were made with regard to the early follow-up of patients from the first to the second audits. The main implication for service development is that clinicians & managers need to be assertive in the first week after discharge, a known period of vulnerability. (10 refs.)