Evaluating risks

Abstract

Mistakes are inevitable in any branch of medicine, but psychiatry is a particularly risky business (Holloway, 1997). When psychiatrists get it wrong there may serious consequences for their patients, the clinical team and the wider public. The Government introduced a series of initiatives in the 1990s: the Care Programme Approach (1990), the supervision register (Department of Health & Home Office, 1994) and supervised discharge (Secretary of State for Health, 1997). One of the main purposes of this legislation was to minimise the risk psychiatric patients pose to the community. Future service provision will be shaped by clinical governance and the National Service Framework for Mental Health (Secretary of State for Health, 1997), and evaluation and management of risk will become increasingly important.