The Extended Hours Community Mental Health Nursing Service is an innovative service introduced within Milton Keynes following the success of an earlier project. The service operates every day and provides an on-call Community Mental Health Nurse (CMHN) who is available 1700-0100 h for people aged 17 years and over, in support of other health services. The function of the service is to offer: Immediate assessment/intervention to people presenting, with any mental health problem, to the out of hours GP service or the local Accident and Emergency department. CMHN support out of normal working hours to patients from the Community Mental Health Teams. Outreach to patients on leave from the wards. Professional support to consultant psychiatrists undertaking home assessments outside normal working hours. Better service to patients in Accident and Emergency by improved liaison between Accident and Emergency and the Mental Health Directorate. This is primarily a nurse-led initiative that has extended the scope of professional practice for all staff involved. The team comprises three G grade mental health nurses, one of whom is the team coordinator, a secretary and a team of 'back up' first level registered nurses who work on-call as and when needed.