The domiciliary consultation service: outdated anachronism or essential part of community psychiatric outreach?

This paper describes a retrospective audit of a domiciliary visiting service in adult psychiatry in one district over a six-month period. General practitioners requested urgent assessment visits for three-quarters of the sample population, but were not present when the consultant attended. When the referrals were compared to the official definition of a domiciliary visit, less than a third were considered to fit the criteria. The implications of these findings are discussed.