DOES A HOSTELS MANAGING AGENCY DETERMINE THE ACCESS TO PSYCHIATRIC-SERVICES SF ITS RESIDENTS

This study examines the effect of managing agency (local authority, pr ivate or voluntary) on the use of other health and social care set-vic es by residents in mental health hostels and group homes with differen t levels of staffing in England and Wales. The sample comprised 1323 r esidents in 275 facilities in eight districts. The measures of service use were number of days in hospital and number of other service conta cts. There were highly significant differences between facilities with similar levels of staffing managed by different agencies. Residents i n the voluntary sector used fewer community services overall; resident s in low-staffed local authority facilities used more services than th ose in similar facilities managed by other agencies. These differences were not easily explained by differences in the social or clinical ch aracteristics of residents. This suggests that there may be organisati onal factors, e.g. hostel staff knowledge of services, which influence access to and use of community services.