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.