North Staffordshire Community Beds Study: longitudinal evaluation of psychiatric in-patient units attached to community mental health centres. 2: Impact upon costs and resource use.
BACKGROUND: Innovative approaches to the provision of psychiatric care must justify their ability to improve the quality of life within the resource constraints imposed on psychiatry. AIMS: To examine the average costs per patient of the experimental and control group services. METHOD: An individual patient costing methodology that identified, measured and valued all public and private resources. RESULTS: The experimental group was more likely to remain in contact with services over a 12-month period, had fewer acute readmissions and spent less time in acute in-patient units. There were significantly different levels and patterns of resource consumption between the groups and between the two separate catchment areas. CONCLUSION: The cost analysis should be assessed in the context of the previous outcome analysis. It is likely, but not inevitable, that such units will increase the overall costs of care provision; this largely depends on the effectiveness with which such units are integrated into existing care provision.