Psychiatry of learning disabilities

Abstract

Medical audit has become an overt part of our work over the last few years, hastened by the 1989 White Paper. At a meeting on 1 November 1989, the mental handicap psychiatrists of Bristol and Weston, Cheltenham, Frenchay, Gloucester, and Southmead Health Authorities agreed to meet monthly to audit agreed topics in mental handicap across district boundaries. These meetings were to be in addition to any local district audit that may already have been occurring, and were to provide a peer group for audit and a means of cross-fertilisation of ideas for projects. The group has now operated for over two years, and would like to present some examples of the topics covered and some comments on its experiences to help stimulate correspondence in the Psychiatric Bulletin on medical audit in learning disabilities.