asked the Minister for Health the way in which he envisages accommodating the community psychiatric services in the health board areas.
Written Answers. - Community Psychiatric Service.
130.
Guidelines on the development of a community psychiatric service are set out in detail in the report Psychiatric Services — Planning for the Future published last year. The overall objective of such a service is to ensure that as many people as possible receive treatment in their normal social environment, thus avoiding the need for admission to hospital. The achievement of this objective will necessitate the development at local level of a range of facilities including day hospitals, day centres, hostels, sheltered accommodation and work shops, retraining centres etc. The report recommends that these services should be organised around multidisciplinary psychiatric teams, each serving specifically defined geographic areas.
This process of implementing this policy has already begun with the preparation by each health board of a detailed plan as to how they envisage this type of service being developed in each of their respective areas. These plans are currently being examined in my Department.