title: Admission to an acute psychiatric ward.
abstract: Not all people with mental health problems are cared for in the community all of the time, but pressure on beds means that short-term containment rather than therapeutic intervention is still the norm. Acute psychiatric services are failing both staff and patients, a problem confirmed by the findings of The Sainsbury Centre for Mental Health (Box 1). This article, the first of a three-part series drawing on the study's results, examines the reasons for this failure. The second article in the series will be published next week.
authors.affiliation: Sainsbury Centre for Mental Health, London.
authors.forename: C
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Moore
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D005260:Female; D006302:Health Services Research; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D001523:Mental Disorders / Q000628:therapy*; D010343:Patient Admission / Q000592:standards*; D011567:Psychiatric Department, Hospital / Q000592:standards*; D011787:Quality of Health Care; D006113:United Kingdom