General practitioners' use of community psychiatric nursing services: a preliminary survey.

A questionnaire on general practitioners' use of community psychiatric nursing services was sent to a random sample of 100 general practitioners in two contrasting areas, Croydon and Cambridgeshire. General adult services were widely available though used less often by Cambridgeshire general practitioners than Croyden doctors. Apart from services for the elderly, specialist services were uncommon. Over a third of doctors reported that their adult services were based in a psychiatric hospital. Less than a quarter of general practitioners had access to primary care based nurses. The pattern of responses demonstrates the wide variety of ways in which general practitioners relate to community psychiatric nurses, even where the psychiatric nursing services are long-established. There remains a need for more consistent and coherent policies about the ways in which community psychiatric nurses are employed in primary care.