Calculating a District's Psychiatric Manpower

Abstract

The possibility that estimates of psychiatric manpower needs could be informed by knowledge of what doctors do and should do with their time was discussed in a previous paper. In this paper, we outline a procedure for calculating the psychiatric manpower needs of a Health District. The basic assumption is that the numbers of psychiatrists in a District ought to be sufficient to do the work that needs to be done. We suggest that this work should be assessed in terms of the amounts of doctor time required for specified activities.