Glasgow’s Mental Health Services for the Elderly

Abstract

Glasgow has had geriatric services for people of pensionable age or over (i.e., 60 for women and 65 for men) since 1952; and the city is divided, for this purpose, into five sectors of approximately 200,000 people, each sector being based on a teaching hospital. The sector in the north of Glasgow contains 203,558 people (97,448 males and 106,140 females), of whom 25,942 are 65 or over (9,865 males and 16,077 females). The University of Glasgow Department of Geriatric Medicine, which is in the northern sector of the city, has two units for people 65 years or over: one for those with predominantly physical disease, containing 48 beds, and the other, called a psychogeriatric unit, with 38 beds (31 for women and 7 for men). These units are sited in Stobhiil General Hospital, which is a teaching hospital with 935 beds for a comprehensive range of pediatric, maternity, psychiatric, geriatric and psychogeriatric, and general medical and surgical patients. The psychogeriatric unit serves a population of 150,000, of whom 12% are 65 years or over. As the unit was initially an experimental one, it was thought desirable to choose a well-defined local population, served by the local mental hospital as well as by Stobhill General Hospital. The psychogeriatric unit in the latter is supported by 40 continuing -treatment beds, in a nearby hospital, for those with irremediable mental illness who do not require admission to a mental hospital; these beds are never used for direct