The place of day hospitals in old age psychiatry

Day hospitals have been traditionally regarded as vital and integral components of old age psychiatry services. The current community-based resourcing of mental health services and apparent blurring of boundaries between the roles of day centres and day hospitals, together with the development of alternative models of service delivery (e.g. that are less capital expensive), have challenged the place of day hospitals in the 1990s. Attempts to define and describe what day hospitals can and should do and how they may be most effectively used have started to appear in the literature. Day hospitals have their advocates and their antagonists and voices have often been raised during 1994.