ABSTRACT
Health services for the elderly, and old age psychiatric services in particular, have predictable frustrations. Geriatric psychiatry is a ‘Johnny Come Lately’ in the history of health services and every ‘new boy’ faces the problem of cracking the barriers of the establishment and changing long-standing practices and modes of thinking. The new geriatric service was to be integrated within the Department of Psychiatry and was accepted as a fully fledged section of the department. It was felt to be important that the geriatric service was not isolated or viewed somehow as outside the sphere of a highly valued Department of Psychiatry. The restrictions under which this new service was to develop, however, were significant. Ten beds were assigned in the general psychiatric ward for the elderly. In a multi-disciplinary approach, it is important to establish a division of labour based on the particular expertise of each member of the team.
