Publisher's Synopsis
This book examines the impasse in the development of alternatives to hospitals, drawing on the experience of both crisis service users and providers and evidence of the effectiveness of such services. The book concludes that crisis services are preferred by users, are usually more cost effective and often more clinically effective than acute admission wards. The book offers a number of policy suggestions to advance the role of crisis services, such as the creation of monitoring, evaluation and development centres, crisis service programmes being established on a national basis and joint training between crisis services and hospitals being set up.
