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Value of Mental Health Nurses not quantifiable
- Cara E Jennings (11 September 2006)
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Cara E Jennings, Teaching Fellow A&E Gateshead
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carajennings{at}doctors.org.uk Cara E Jennings
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Dear Editor
I read with interest the article in September's issue of the EMJ (How effective are mental health liaison nurses in A&E departments?: EMJ 2006;23:687-692). I have just moved from a department with psychiatric liaison nurses to one without. I too 'miss' the nurses. I was surprised that patient satisfaction was not improved by the intervention; since the specialist nurses in the study were able to spend as much as an hour with the patients. I conjecture the average casualty officer would offer a maximum of ten to fifteen minutes of their time. I wonder if this dissatisfaction is in part due to the fact that many of these patients are depressed, deliberate self harmers whose glass is, in general, half empty and for whom dissatisfaction is symptomatic of the disease. I found that the proper and thorough assessment provided by psychiatric liaison nurses meant we were able to discharge more patients to the community. I note in one of the hospitals in the study 6.5% less patients were admitted during the intervention period. This must balance the cost of employing the nurses. I believe however the greatest benefit of psychiaitric liaison nurses is unquantifyable. These nurses are trained in counselling; junior doctors are not. In my experience junior doctors find it difficult to provide the necessary empathy to this group of patients; especcially when there is a long queue of other patients waiting to be seen. They also find it emotionally draining as many of the patients have got desperate social circumstances. The study looked mainly at the effect of psychiatric liaison nurses on mental health patients but I am sure that the extra time and mental energy that the junior doctors would have if these nurses were a permanant fixture would benefit medical patients also. |
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