Modern Trends in the Planning of Mental Hospitals and other Psychiatric Units in England

1948 ◽  
Vol 94 (394) ◽  
pp. 99-106 ◽  
Author(s):  
F. C. Webster
Keyword(s):  
Mental Hospital ◽  
Mental Hospitals ◽  
Planning And Design ◽  
Psychiatric Units ◽  
Care And Treatment

The mental hospital of to-day has developed in stages from the earliest of which we have any particulars.Progress in planning and design has been gradual, with periods during which it has been pronounced. Each period has shown an advance in the lay-out and detailed arrangement of the buildings to meet the coincident advance in methods of care and treatment of the patients.

Sir James Crichton Browne, 1840-1938

1939 ◽  
Vol 2 (7) ◽  
pp. 519-521
Keyword(s):  
Mental Disorders ◽  
Royal Society ◽  
Mental Hospital ◽  
Charles Darwin ◽  
High Standard ◽  
Standard Of Care ◽  
The West ◽  
Mental Hospitals ◽  
Medical Superintendent ◽  
Care And Treatment

On 31 January 1938, Sir James Crichton-Browne died a few months after his 97th birthday. In him the Royal Society lost its oldest Fellow, both in age and in membership, for he was elected Fellow in 1883, Charles Darwin being one of his proposers. His father, Dr W. A. F. Browne, who was the first Medical Superintendent of the Crichton Royal Mental Hospital at Dumfries, was largely responsible for the high standard of care and treatment of the insane for which this institution has since been famous ; later he became Commissioner in Lunacy in Scotland. It was therefore not surprising that after qualifying in medicine in Edinburgh University at the age of 22, his son decided to devote himself to the study of mental disorders. After serving in junior posts in various county Mental Hospitals he was appointed in 1866 Medical Superintendent of the West Riding Asylum, at Wakefield, a post he held until 1875. It was here his most valuable researches and pioneering work was done.

Community Psychiatry in London. A Three-Year Analysis

1969 ◽  
Vol 115 (521) ◽  
pp. 465-474 ◽  
Author(s):  
A. J. Oldham
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
General Hospital ◽  
Mental Hospital ◽  
Psychiatric Patients ◽  
Full Range ◽  
Admission Rate ◽  
Mental Hospitals ◽  
Hospital Units ◽  
Psychiatric Units ◽  
Hospital Patients

The decade following the end of World War II saw a progressive rise in the admission rate to mental hospitals in this country. The population of mental hospitals rose to a peak of 152,000 in England and Wales in 1954, since when there has been a steady decline. These fluctuations have been analysed by such authors as Norton (1961) and Tooth and Brooke (1961). The latter attributed the more recent decline to increased efficiency of treatment and rehabilitation, and predicted a continued fall so reducing the mental hospital patients by about 1970 that they would be covered by an allocation of 1 · 8 beds per thousand population. Maclay (1963) believed this prediction to err if anything on the conservative side and the Ministry of Health (1962) based its plans for psychiatric beds upon this ratio. In these plans the Ministry accepted the thesis that short-stay psychiatric patients should preferably be treated in general hospital units near to their homes whilst patients needing a longer hospital stay should be catered for in specialized hospitals for that purpose. The prediction in the Ministry of Health's Hospital Plan (1962) that there would be a steadily declining mental hospital population has been severely criticized by Gore and Jones (1961) but supported by Orwin and Sim (1965) in their analysis of the effects of the provision of acute general hospital psychiatric units in the Birmingham area. The importance of accurately assessing the psychiatric hospital bed needs over the next twenty years, given a full range medical and ancillary services, is vital to future planning and has been much in the author's mind when writing this paper.

Some Characteristics of Mental Hospital Absconders

1967 ◽  
Vol 113 (503) ◽  
pp. 1087-1090 ◽  
Author(s):  
R. Antebi
Keyword(s):  
Mental Hospital ◽  
Open Door ◽  
Open Door Policy ◽  
Mental Hospitals ◽  
Psychiatric Units ◽  
Recent Origin

It is becoming increasingly important, in the administration of psychiatric units, to single out the likely absconder from the rest of the hospital community. The following study has been embarked upon partly to outline a sketch of a hypothetical absconder, and partly to lay down a method of study which could be applied to other institutions with similar problems. The problem of absconding is of comparatively recent origin, as the “open door policy” has become generally adopted in British mental hospitals.

A Special Mental Hospital Unit for the Treatment of Psychosis and Neurosis in Juveniles

1953 ◽  
Vol 99 (414) ◽  
pp. 123-129 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dalton E. Sands
Keyword(s):  
Mental Hospital ◽  
Psychiatric Illness ◽  
Adult Patients ◽  
Hospital Unit ◽  
Hospital Practice ◽  
Special Unit ◽  
The Past ◽  
Mental Hospitals ◽  
End Results

Since the treatment of juveniles as in-patients in a special unit is somewhat unusual in mental hospital practice, a brief introduction may not be out of place. These units might be considered as another development in a trend which has been progressing for the past 25 years. Until 1930 certification of all admissions to mental hospitals and a mainly custodial régime ensured the majority of patients being largely the end-results of psychiatric illness. Since 1930 the steadily increasing use of the voluntary system has brought many patients to hospital at a stage when their illness can be favourably influenced by modern therapeutic methods. An associated development was the increased provision of wards or units separate from the chronically disturbed cases, or even, as at this hospital, a complete villa system of detached and semi-detached wards for mainly voluntary adult patients.

Walking in a cage: Attuning to atmospheric intensities through corporeality

2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
pp. 47-66 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kirsi Heimonen
Keyword(s):  
Emmanuel Levinas ◽  
Mental Hospital ◽  
Research Study ◽  
Weather Conditions ◽  
Phenomenological Approach ◽  
Multidisciplinary Research ◽  
Research Project ◽  
Mental Hospitals ◽  
Choreographic Process ◽  
Artistic Research

This article discusses an artistic act: walking for seven sequential days inside a cage made of chicken wire in the grounds of a former mental hospital in Lapinlahti in Helsinki, Finland and its potential to offer insights into past events in mental hospitals through the notions of corporeal attunement and atmosphere. The idea for Walking Cage was prompted by a word in the data, which included memories by patients and non-patients of Finnish mental hospitals gathered in connection with a multidisciplinary research project. Passers-by, occasional co-walkers, weather conditions and the grounds of the former mental hospital partially formed and deformed the atmospheric qualities of the artistic research event. These qualities were experienced through corporeal attuning influenced by the Skinner Releasing Technique, a somatic movement method. The article proposes a singular way of approaching the possibilities of corporeal openness and sensibility in a choreographic process in which, illuminated by, among others, the notions of threshold and limit, one becomes a stranger to oneself by surrendering oneself to atmospheric intensities. This artistic research study adopts a phenomenological approach, drawing mainly on the ideas of Jean-Luc Nancy, Mikel Dufrenne and Emmanuel Levinas.

Preliminary Tuberculosis Survey in a Mental Hospital

1946 ◽  
Vol 92 (386) ◽  
pp. 96-109 ◽  
Author(s):  
Donal F. Early
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
Mental Hospital ◽  
Psychiatric Treatment ◽  
Hospital Staff ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
The Public ◽  
Mental Hospitals ◽  
Number Of Patients ◽  
Hospital Patients ◽  
Disproportionate Number

The problem of tuberculosis amongst mental hospital patients is of importance from both the psychiatric and public health point of view. Most of the active methods of psychiatric treatment must be abandoned or discontinued when physical illness intervenes. The problem is even more far-reaching from the standpoint of public health. Wingfield, Trail, Banks and McDougall (1942) have estimated that there is probably a reservoir of 250,000 infectious cases recognized and unrecognized in England, Scotland and Wales, and several authors have pointed out that mental hospitals contribute a disproportionate number to this reservoir. Modern methods of mental hospital administration with parole and leave privileges applied to the maximum number of patients lend importance to the public health aspect, not only the patients themselves and hospital staff being menaced, but also patients' visitors and relatives and other contacts outside hospital. The incidence of tuberculosis in mental hospitals has been variously estimated at 5 to 10 times and the mortality in peace-time 8 or 9 times that of the general population. These figures are sufficient to justify all efforts to bring the problem under control.

Recent Critical Trends in Mental Hospital Admissions in the Oxford Region

1962 ◽  
Vol 108 (452) ◽  
pp. 59-67 ◽  
Author(s):  
A. Barr ◽  
D. Golding ◽  
R. W. Parnell
Keyword(s):  
Mental Health ◽  
Length Of Stay ◽  
Mental Hospital ◽  
Hospital Admissions ◽  
Average Length ◽  
Time Study ◽  
Ministry Of Health ◽  
Mental Hospitals ◽  
Average Length Of Stay ◽  
One Year

The statistics on mental hospitals published by the Ministry of Health (1957) show that the average length of stay for admissions to mental hospitals decreased in the period 1952–1956. According to the Registrar-General's Mental Health Supplement (1961) there was an average saving, between 1951 and 1958, of sixteen days for men and thirteen days for women, among patients staying less than one year. But these figures for stay only relate to the patients discharged each year, irrespective of the year of their admission, and furthermore we do not know what happens to particular groups such, for example, as schizophrenics. Although remarkable changes are occurring at the present time, study of them is hampered by lack of appropriate and up-to-date information.

scholarly journals Discrepancies and inaccuracies in statistics for detained patients

1995 ◽  
Vol 19 (1) ◽  
pp. 28-32 ◽  
Author(s):  
Teresa Nemitz ◽  
Philip Bean
Keyword(s):  
Mental Health ◽  
Mental Hospital ◽  
Regional Health ◽  
Mental Hospitals ◽  
Mental Health Act ◽  
Health Authorities ◽  
Government Planning ◽  
Regional Health Authorities

While conducting a study on the nature and extent of compulsory admissions to mental hospitals within the four London regional health authorities, discrepancies and inaccuracies were revealed in many of those mental hospital in-patient statistics. The nature and extent of some of these are examined. It is suggested that the value of such statistics for government planning must be questioned as is their value for research. It is recommended that a centralised system of collecting and collating such data be introduced as a matter of priority and that such a system be operated by the Mental Health Act Commission.

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