The recent formation of a Liaison Psychiatry Group within the College reflects the growing integration of psychiatry with other medical specialties in the general hospital. The Group was established to foster the development of psychiatry in relation to medical and surgical patients, including its clinical, teaching and research components. The title, Liaison Psychiatry, is not an ideal term but has become firmly established in other countries to denote that area of psychiatry where the psychiatrist has particular skills to contribute to the care of the physically ill, and to those in whom psychiatric disorder presents in somatic terms.1

Following the publication of correspondence between the then Minister for Health, Mr Kenneth Clarke, and the National Schizophrenia Fellowship (Bulletin, March 1985, 9, 49–55), we are now publishing the concluding letters in this exchange of correspondence. (Mrs Joyce Major has been succeeded by Mr R. N. Lines as Chairman of the NSF.)

We use the expression ‘long-term patient’ to describe one who, whether in hospital or elsewhere, needs a great deal of supervision and/or nursing care. We use ‘long-stay patient’ for the smaller category in hospital or equivalent health service institution. The great majority of long-term who are not long-stay are at present cared for by relatives, if at all; a small fraction are in staffed homes provided by the voluntary sector, or are in local authority hostels.

Estimating demand for psychotherapy is like trying to evaluate the size of a mountain range from the foothills—the higher one climbs, the more potential needs become apparent. The unspoken dream that at some point all these needs will be met by trained psychotherapists seems firmly destined to stay in the realms of fantasy. In reality, specialist psychotherapists will always be thin on the ground. In Surrey, where my own practice is based, I am, and am likely to remain, the only medically trained psychotherapist with four sessions allocated to a population of 200,000. The psychotherapy department at St. George's Hospital, Tooting, to which I am also attached, has a catchment which extends to the whole South-West Thames Region, encompassing places as far afield as Chichester and Haywards Heath.

In reply to a question on 12 February, Mr John Patten said that patients leaving mental illness hospitals had the same right as anybody else to choose where they live. The full range of community resources is available. The Department is not responsible for accepting or rejecting individual homes, but the Registered Homes Act 1984 has tightened the conditions for the registration and inspection of such homes by local social service authorities. The DHSS commended a code of practice for residential care, ‘Home Life’, to registration authorities last year; it contains a section specifically about mentally ill people and their rehabilitation.

In the Charter of the College, the Research Committee is established as a Standing Committee of Council; thus research has always been seen to be an essential part of the work of the College. The four main roles of the Research Committee are: (a) to help, advise and encourage the membership of the College in carrying out psychiatric research; (b) to advise the Council on the place of all aspects of research in the College; (c) to maintain a dialogue between the College and major potential grant-giving organizations for research, for example, the Medical Research Committee (MRC), the Department of Health and Social Services (DHSS) (both of which send observers to the Research Committee) and larger relevant voluntary organizations; and (d) in some circumstances to be the agent for carrying out research.

The College's Manpower Committee, chaired by Dr Fiona Caldicott, has recently debated the case for setting new norms for general psychiatrists to meet increased clinical demand caused by changing expectations of community care, the new Mental Health Act and the rising numbers of elderly mentally ill and patients with alcohol and drug problems. One view was that such an exercise would be a waste of time, owing to uncertainties about the implementation of 'Short’ and also because many districts have not yet reached the norm of one (whole-time equivalent) consultant to 40,000 population agreed with the Department of Health in 1975. It was agreed that the Manpower Committee should first of all try to help consultants in undermanned districts to overcome obstacles frustrating local initiatives to increase the establishment of general psychiatrists. Letters should be addressed to Dr Caldicott at the College address.

From a total of 338 candidates, 160 were successful in passing the Preliminary Test. These passes are valid for a period of five years. If any candidate fails to pass the Membership Examination within the five years of passing the Preliminary Test, then he/she would be required to sit the Preliminary Test again before making a further attempt at the Membership Examination.