Long-term Forensic Psychiatric Care (LFPC)

Long-term Forensic Psychiatric Care (LFPC)

 

Long-term forensic psychiatric care concerns itself with patients who do not profit enough from treatment to return safely to society. For many of these patients return to society is no longer an option. Consequently, treatment is not primarily focused on risk reduction. Rather, the main objective is to offer the patients an optimal quality of life. This demands a specialized approach, which provides a life environment optimally attuned to individual possibilities and needs, as well as tailored psychological, psychiatric and somatic care.

 

In the Netherlands, LFPC involves forensic psychiatric patients with a long-term risk of reoffending who (1) got the TBS order (placement under a hospital order) with a so-called long stay indication, or (2) are chronic psychiatric patients who for a long time have disrupted society, present risks and respond insufficiently to treatment (so called long-care).

 

For more information, please see the EFP LFPC forum

LFPC Care Program

 


EFP has developed in collaboration with LFPC facilities in the Netherlands* a care program (CP), which describes the status quo in the long-term forensic psychiatric care in the Netherlands, as well as ideas for further development of coherence, transparency, goal-directedness, quality, and evaluation of LFPC in order to realize a learning practice. The CP is certainly not a static instrument or a strict protocol, but more a first initiative to a guideline. You can download the summary here.


  

Longstay (in Dutch)

 

Het EFP heeft in samenwerking met het veld* in juni 2009 het zorgprogramma 'Langdurige Forensische Psychiatrische Zorg' (LFPZ) tot stand gebracht. Dit zorgprogramma kunt u hier downloaden.

 

* FPC Pompe Foundation, FPC Veldzicht, De Woensele Poort and the Ministry of Justice

 

International Knowledge Exchange Activities

 


Until now two international knowledge exchange meetings were organized in the Netherlands, and two LFPC symposia were presented at the 10th IAFMHS Conference in Vancouver.

 

Vancouver 10th IAFMHS

10th IAFHMS Conference, Vancouver, May 25-27, 2010

"In the right place at the right time: Conceptual and practical considerations about long-term forensic psychiatric care".


 

 You can read here a report of Iva Embley

 

 

Presentations:

 

 

 

2nd International Long stay Knowledge Exchange

 

The 2nd International Long stay Knowledge Exchange was organized at the occasion of the opening of the new LFPC facility of the Pompe Foundation in Zeeland, the Netherlands, on June 11, 2009 . At the same time, the Dutch LFPC care program was presented.

Presentations:

 

1e International Long stay Knowledge Exchange

The 1st International Long stay Knowledge Exchange was held on October 6 & 7, 2008 in Nijmegen, the Netherlands. The purpose of the meeting was to lay a foundation for further collaboration of practitioners and managers responsible for forensic psychiatric wards for long stay patients.

 

During the meeting were discussed the intricacies of the various national legal systems, the characteristics of patients who are hospitalized for extended time periods (typically six years or longer), the paths that lead to long stay wards, as well as the major issues and challenges relevant for these wards (see presentations of the participating countries beneath). Moreover, the participants of the meeting visited three long stay locations: The ‘Kempehuis', PI Vught,  and ‘Corridor', all under the management of the Pompestichting.

 

Presentations of participating countries:


- England - Rampton Hospital
- England - Frankland Prison
- Germany - Forensic Psychiatric Hospital Haina
- Sweden - Sundsvall Forensic Psychiatric Hospital
- Belgium - Forensic Psychiatry Rekem
- The Netherlands - Pompestichting

 


Conclusions of the meeting:

  • Long stay wards are dealing with pretty much the same issues, regardless of the - quite different - national legal systems. Thus the legal differences do not stand in a way of further international collaboration at the ward and patient level. 
  • Jeremy Resnick - Rampton Hospital: "Forensic psychiatry could learn a lesson from the somatic medicine, which already long time ago accepted that certain illnesses are untreatable with the current state-of-the-art. Palliative care aimed at improving the quality of life of people facing serious, complex illnesses is then more in place than senseless attempts to cure these patients".
  • Manipulation of the living environment plays a significant therapeutic role, especially so on long stay wards. This issue deserves further research!

 

Do you have experience with long stay patients? Please share your experiences, concerns and ideas with us: secretariaat@efp.nl