National Service Framework for Older People London: Department of Health. 2001. 194 pp. Free of charge.

David Jolley

doi:10.1192/pb.27.1.38

Abstract

This National Service Framework (NSF) is welcome. It confirms that the health and welfare of older people is to be addressed as a priority — and comes only fourth in the series of such publications — after cancer, coronary heart disease and mental illness. All the publications intend to improve

Highlights

Old age psychiatrists, and other professionals, have waited with eager anticipation for this publication’s delivery, uncomfortable that older people and people with dementia had been excluded from the otherwise excellent National Service Framework (NSF) for Mental Illness
Older people with serious mental illnesses of all kinds, including those who survive into later life with chronic or relapsing disorders, require the same discipline and quality of care guaranteed to younger people with mental illness by the NSF for Mental Illness
Its interface with general psychiatry will benefit from clarification, informed by a determination that the best interests of individual patients and their families remain paramount

Summary

Introduction

Other professionals, have waited with eager anticipation for this publication’s delivery, uncomfortable that older people and people with dementia had been excluded from the otherwise excellent NSF for Mental Illness. Some health care professionals have sought to interpret ‘equity’ for old people in terms of admission to the same acute hospital wards as younger people.

Results

Conclusion