A Day Hospital for Neurotics in an Industrial Community

Abstract

The Uffculme Day Hospital was opened some two and a half years ago as part of an experimental scheme to treat psychiatric patients outside the confines of a mental hospital. The plan was to admit a small number of patients and gradually to develop and organize a group therapeutic technique in the light of experience. It was hoped that a Day Hospital conveniently situated within a large industrial city would help to meet an increasing need for diagnostic and therapeutic facilities. It might find a solution for those patients who could not be adequately treated as out-patients and yet were not likely to benefit from admission to already hard-pressed and overcrowded mental hospitals. While the present Day Hospital scheme is too small to have a significant influence on the total psychiatric problems of some one million and a half people living in the vicinity, it has so far shown signs of being a welcome addition to the mental health services of the region.