Impact of crisis resolution and home treatment teams on psychiatric admissions in England.

BACKGROUND

In 2000/01 crisis resolution and home treatment (CRHT) teams were introduced in England and have been associated in previous studies with reductions in in-patient admissions.

AIMS

To examine whether the implementation of CRHT teams has been associated with reductions in admissions.

METHOD

We used data from a previous national study for 229 primary care trusts (PCTs) between 1998/99 and 2003/04. We used a robust policy evaluation methodology to simultaneously examine temporal changes (PCTs before versus after the introduction of CRHT teams) and cross-sectional changes (PCTs with and without CRHT teams).

RESULTS

Controlling for various confounding factors, using different control groups and estimation methods, we find no significant differences in admissions between PCTs with and without CRHT teams.

CONCLUSIONS

Contrary to previous studies, we find no evidence that the CRHT policy per se has made any difference to admissions and suggest a need for more research on the policy as a whole.