SUMMARYThe wellbeing of attenders of an old age psychiatry day hospital and their carers was assessed as the unit closed over a 2-week period. Decline in the wellbeing of carers and attenders was seen with a regression to preclosure levels. The results suggest the importance of the day hospital to the patients and their carers. The problems of evaluation at short notice are discussed.KEY worms-Day hospital, evaluation, wellbeing, quality assurance Since the introduction of the day hospital from Russia in the late 1940s the numbers have grown both in psychiatry and in geriatric medicine (Vaughan, 1985). Despite their widespread use in old age psychiatry and recommendations that new services should have a day hospital (Shulman and Arie, 199 l), there remains little beyond anecdotal evidence that they are of benefit (eg Greene and Timbury, 1979;Ball, 1993). Thompson (1990) has suggested that the time is ripe for the evaluation and audit of day hospitals.Presented below is an evaluation of a day hospital which forms part of an acute mental health unit for people over 65. Providing 32 places a day, for both functionally ill and organically impaired patients, it is staffed with a multidisciplinary team. Following a decision of the Priority Care Management Board, which directly manages the psychiatric services, the day hospital was closed for a 2-week period over Christmas and the New Year. The primary aim of the closure was to save money on nursing budgets. The aim of the project was to evaluate some aspects of this closure for those attending the day hospital and their carers. METHODTwo brief questionnaires were devised, one for attenders and a second for their main caregiver/ relative, asking whether people had been feeling the same, better or worse than usual during the preceding week. Carers were also asked to record how they perceived the day hospital attender to be feeling and their own feelings concerning problems in their caring role. Data were collected over an 8-week period (3 weeks prior to closure, 2 weeks of closure and 3 weeks following).Values were given to the responses as follows:Feeling much better than usual Feeling a bit better than usual Feeling the same as usual Feeling a bit worse than usual Feeling much worse than usual Table 1 shows the response rates to the questionnaires of the attenders and carers. This shows a drop in response rate over the course of the study for both groups. The mean wellbeing scores for the attenders and the carers and the carers' reports of attenders are shown in Fig. 1.

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