Components of the CPS

The Community Psychiatric Centre is the linchpin of the CPS and is where staff meetings take place and interventions are planned and initiated. The Centre, located in an old two-storey house with a garden, not far away from the University general hospital, is open on weekdays, from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. and on Saturdays from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Therapeutic programmes include crisis intervention, day care for acute and chronic patients and social skills groups. The Centre also serves as an informal meeting place for Service "users", and it is conceived as a flexible resource whose organization can be modified from time to time to meet the users' changing needs.

Progetto Giovani Psicotici (ottobre 2005 - giugno 2006)

The psychiatric ward is an open ward of 16 beds located in the University general hospital which has in total about 800 beds. It is a traditional hospital ward, similar to all other medical wards in the hospital and its door is locked when there are patients who have been compulsory admitted.

The outpatient department provides psychiatric consultations and individual and family therapy. Offices are located in the general hospital and in the Mental Health Centre.

The consultation liaison service for other medical and surgical departments (run by the Department of Medical Psychology) maintains psychiatric integration with other hospital-based medical activities and ensures continuing contact with our patients when hospitalized for medical reasons.

The emergency service. There is a psychiatric emergency service at the general hospital, open 24 hours a day, seven days a week. It is run by a psychiatrist from our team, who is on call. To ensure therapeutic continuity, he/she is usually assisted during working hours by the treatment team members who are (or will be) in charge of the patient requiring the urgent intervention.

There is also an emergency night and week-end service, co-ordinated by a psychiatrist and run by two psychiatric nurses from our team, who are on call to provide care in the supported flats and hostel, as well as at patients' homes.

Home visits can be made to provide crisis intervention in response to emergency calls, but for chronic patients these are usually planned in advance and offer regular, long-term support and care to patients and their families with the goal of minimizing relapses and hospital admissions. Home visits are highly regarded by the service and are well accepted by patients and families.

One group home and two apartments, offering different levels of supervision, and one hostel (with 8 beds, supervised 24 hours a day by support workers and counsellors and occasionally visited by nurses), are also available.