Invited commentary on: Variations in the costs of child and adolescent psychiatric in-patient units

Abstract

The great majority of young people with mental health problems never need admission to hospital. A small number, however, require some kind of in-patient provision. In comparison with North America and many parts of Europe, such provision has now become relatively uncommon in the UK. Although the remaining services are widely believed to be costly, there are no national data collections that provide accurate economic data. To begin to meet this need, the Department of Health commissioned a national study to explore the costs of these units, which ran in parallel with the National In-patient Child and Adolescent Psychiatry Study (NICAPS).