Closing the asylums: where do all the former long-stay patients go?

The ongoing closure of the old asylums has resulted in large numbers of potentially vulnerable people living in the community. Where are these patients now and how are they coping? This study answers these questions in relation to a cohort of former long-stay patients discharged between 1985 and 1989 in Somerset Health District. The findings show that, as a group, they are a settled non-mobile population whose residential setting is not under threat. However, day care arrangements are inadequate with 45% of the study population without any structured day care. Most patients had unmet needs in the categories 'living space', 'work' and 'leisure'. Such studies are simple to conduct, and require little research funding. This methodology is recommended as a crude means of measuring unmet needs in this group of vulnerable individuals.