Liaison Psychiatry

The hospital mental health teams provide specialist biopsychosocial mental health assessment and treatment to people who are admitted to the general hospital wards within Leeds Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust (LTHT). The service covers St James’ Hospital (SJUH), Leeds General Infirmary (LGI), and Chapel Allerton Hospital.

About the service

Liaison Psychiatry is the sub-specialty of psychiatry concerned with the provision of clinical services, teaching and research in the general hospital setting.

The service aims to provide access to a specialist multi- disciplinary team, for the care of patients in the general hospital setting who are presenting with psychiatric or psychological as well as complex physical problems requiring comprehensive assessment and care management.

Our teams consist of mental health professionals (including doctors and nurses) who have expertise in assessing and supporting individuals within the general hospital environment.

We see people who have been admitted to hospital who have new or pre-existing mental health needs.

Our role is to minimise the extent to which psychological symptoms or mental illness prevents people from getting the best possible outcome from their medical care.

How to get in touch

The hospital mental health teams consist of three teams:

• The LGI team for working age adults, age 18-64, covering the LGI and Chapel Allerton Hospital – contact us on 0113 39 23204
• The SJUH team for working age adults, age 18-64, covering St James’ Hospital – contact us on 0113 85 56730
• The Older People’s team, for adults age 65+ (or with a diagnosis of early onset dementia), covering LGI, SJUH and Chapel Allerton hospital – contact us on 0113 20 67147

Our core hours are Monday to Friday, 9am to 5pm, but we also have 24-hour service provision for advice and support outside of these hours:

• The Older People’s team can be contacted for urgent advice and support regarding older adults between 5pm-9pm Monday to Friday and 9am-5pm on weekends and bank holidays via the LYPFT switchboard on 0113 85 55000.
• Out-of-hours cover is otherwise provided by on-call specialist liaison practitioners and psychiatry doctors and referrals can be made by calling our Trust’s switchboard on 0113 85 55000.

Referral information

We only accept referrals from health professionals. Information for healthcare professionals is at the bottom of the page.

How we will work with people referred to our service

We will work closely with you, the ward and the hospital teams responsible for your care.

An initial assessment will be completed looking at your physical, psychological and social needs and strengths. Depending on the outcome of this assessment we may provide you with information, advice and brief psychological interventions. We may also provide the hospital team with advice on care planning, any possible diagnosis, or suggestions for further investigations and, if necessary, treatment.

Sometimes we only see people once, others we see more often. This depends on the nature of what we have been asked to help with.

At the end of your stay, we will write to your GP to summarise our discussions with you. If appropriate we will refer you onto other mental health services or signpost you towards other community services. You will be involved in these decisions.

Support for carers

We understand that when someone we care about is unwell, this can be a very difficult time, and our service users’ carers and loved ones may be experiencing significant stress. We aim to provide expert advice and support while service users are under our care. We are happy to provide updates and information to carers, with the service user’s consent, when requested or required.

Carers support is available from Carers Leeds and the Carers Leeds Hospital Team.

The ward team may make a referral to the Admiral Nurses, who are dementia nurse specialists in our service who support carers of and people with dementia during their hospital stay.

Information for healthcare professionals

We only accept referrals from health professionals. They may be from teams working within Leeds Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust, or Leeds and York Partnership NHS Foundation Trust. Referrals may also be taken from external Trusts wishing to transfer someone’s care.

We accept referrals by telephone only. When you contact us to make a referral, your call will either be passed directly to a clinician for triage, or a clinician will call you back as soon as possible.
We will ask a series of questions about the service user and their circumstances, including details of their admission, medical progress and discharge plans, their mental health history and current presentation, any risks presenting to themselves or others, details of collateral history and psychiatric medication.

Following a detailed referral discussion, the clinician will triage the referral. They may ask for some more information or recommend further investigations. They may provide advice, or information about other services which may be helpful (this might include talking therapies, bereavement support, or social prescribing).

Once a referral is accepted, we aim to make initial contact within 24 hours. We will provide interim advice if required.