ABSTRACT
In the UK, patients are normally registered from birth with a general practitioner, or else register when they enter the country. In many areas, mental health agencies have followed the general trend from being based mainly in psychiatric hospitals to being based in general hospitals or in the community. Of all patients with mental illness diagnoses recorded from 1971 to 1977, from 2.5 per cent to 3.0 per cent were referred to psychiatric out-patient clinics. Younger patients were more likely to have been referred to a psychiatric agency for specialist treatment, whereas older patients were more likely to have been prescribed psychotropic drugs. In the UK, as in other countries, there has been a reduction in the length of time which mentally ill patients spend in psychiatric hospitals and a partial transfer of responsibility for their care to community services provided by district health authorities and by general practitioners.
