Planning for Bed Needs and Resource Requirements in Acute Psychiatry: Key points from the Report of the Royal College of Psychiatrists Working Party on Psychiatric Beds and Resources, 1986

In 1978 the Section for Social and Community Psychiatry of the Royal College of Psychiatrists set up a working party to reconsider the DHSS guideline of 0.5 beds per 1,000 population for acute psychiatric units and to develop a new approach which would enable planners to adopt an appropriate bed provision figure according to the needs of different district psychiatric services. This followed the realisation that Health Authorities were beginning to set arbitrarily their own norms for bed provision, often based on one or two examples within their region, despite the fact that there is a two to three fold variation between districts in the number of beds provided for acute psychiatry. For example, in 1981 Worcester used 0.19 acute beds per 1,000 population and Camberwell used 0.76.