title: Use of liaison psychiatrists in A&E.
abstract: In this paper, a consultant psychiatrist argues that apart from self-referrals, there seems to be a trend among GPs, police surgeons, police officers and even solicitors to refer to the A&E for emergency psychiatric assistance. While there is a view that such 'inappropriate' use should be discouraged, an alternative policy would be to recognise the accessibility of A&E and ensure facilities and staffing are adequate to provide a psychiatric emergencies service equal to that provided for medical emergencies.