1. What is the Liaison Mental Health Service? The Liaison Mental Health Service is a
specialist service which has two Primary aims, the first of these being to offer a comprehensive psychosocial assessment of all patients presenting at The Princess Royal Hospital, Telford and The Royal Shrewsbury Hospital NHS Trust who have deliberately harmed or injured themselves. Secondly, the service aims to liaise with medical, nursing and other disciplines, both in the hospitals and the community, on the assessment, care management and appropriate referral-on of patients who have been treated.
A major component of this second aim is for the service to also offer brief interventions to some patients who are motivated to begin the process of addressing their problems following discharge from hospital. The service also has a number of Secondary aims, which it endeavors to meet and these are listed below:
To offer a prompt and professional service to a very specific patient group
A skilled Clinical Nurse Specialist undertakes the process of assessment as soon as the patient is willing or able to be interviewed and ideally relatives and carers are encouraged to participate in this process. Following a detailed assessment a number of options can be pursued which may include, referral to formal mental health services or other non-statutory organizations. Some patients may be offeredshort-term follow-up in the form of brief interventions aimed at addressing specific problems, such as relationship issues, gender/sexuality difficulties and factors resulting from physical/sexual abuse.
Conversely some patients may decline follow-up or further help and it is acknowledged that they have the right to do so. However, an assessment of potential risk factors is always undertaken and this may, in some instances, preclude patients from self-discharging or declining follow-up if a significant level of further risk of self-harm/injury is identified.
Main Liaison Mental Health page Next page