Service Description
About the Brooker Centre
Lectures
SHO Competency
Crash Call Procedure
Liaison Psychiatry
Preventing Violence
Managing disturbed In-patients
Adult Liaison Psychiatry Service to general wards
Trainee Doctors in the Brooker Centre usually participate in the Liaison Psychiatry
Service (for patients aged 16-65).
All referrals to be in by 10.30 am for same day service. Referrals after this time should,
except in urgent circumstances be seen the next day. Please visit the Medical Secretaries
office to collect your referrals on the morning of your liaison day.
Ambiguous referrals (e.g. delirium/pure alcohol/violence) to be clarified with referrer,
but good practice would dictate that entry should be written in medical notes and
patient/case seen (if necessary with escort).
Excess referral numbers to be discussed with on call junior then on call consultant for
additional help. Referrals left over at end of day, if non-urgent to be passed over (with
necessary communication) to next day’s liaison person.
Seek immediate supervision (if needed) from senior colleagues e.g. Dr B Green or Dr M
Green or on-call consultant.
Psychiatric case notes to contain main assessment details. Medical notes to contain brief
summary and action plan.
Letter to GP and referring consultant team on every patient seen.
You should arrange cover with other rota participants for annual/study leave.
Emergency / sickness / unforeseen events / cover by catchment area junior for that team,
and failing this by the junior on-call for the day.
Bank holiday / weekend cover by junior on-call for the day.
The following notes describe the service to the referring medical and surgical junior
doctors in their handbook:
“Liaison Psychiatry Referrals.
From time to time you will require psychiatric advice on inpatients.
Before referring patients who are disorientated or acutely hallucinated (and who do not
have a previous psychiatric
history) please exclude acute and treatable causes of acute organic psychosis such as
delirium tremens, chest
infections, hypoxia and post-operative infection/anaemia/hypoxia etc.
The referral should ideally be made using a specialized liaison psychiatry form, but the
traditional pink consultation
form will do.
Please remember that to try and give a high quality, same-day service for routine
inpatients during the week we need:
a/ the form to be legibly completed and to give all details such as the patient’s
address, date of birth and whether they
have been seen by us before.
b/ a current mental state recorded on the form
c/ the form to be in to the Pine Day Unit before 10.30 am that day
An emergency service is available during the evenings and at weekends, but this does not
exist to give opinions on what should be routine referrals.
Version 4.0
October 2000