At year-end, psychiatric hospitals provided 3 063 beds while public psychiatric units of general hospitals provided 1 845 beds. The number of psychiatric day hospital places was increased to 719. Castle Peak Hospital, one of Hong Kong's two main psychiatric hospitals, is being redeveloped.

    Community work and after-care units of psychiatric hospitals offer community psychiatric nursing service and domiciliary occupational therapy service to discharged patients. These services, which form an integral element of community psychiatric service, aim to provide continual care, treatment and rehabilitation programmes for discharged patients in their home settings. Not only can these services help patients' social readjustment, they can also educate patients and their families on mental health. Community psychiatric teams and psychogeriatric teams have been set up to provide designated care and rehabilitation programmes to psychiatric and psychogeriatric patients. During the year, 22 803 outreach services attendances were served by the community psychiatric teams. Other complementary rehabilitative services run by government departments and non-governmental organisations include day centres, halfway houses, long-stay care homes, vocational training, selective placement and social clubs.

    Severe mental illness, such as schizophrenia and severe mood disorders, often starts in teenage years and in early adulthood. Early detection and treatment will result in better long-term treatment outcome and reduce long-term impairment to patients. Four early intervention teams have been set up to assess persons aged under 25 and identify for early treatment those suffering from psychotic problems. As at December, 2 432 persons have been assessed, and 858 persons referred for treatment.

    Severely mentally handicapped persons requiring intensive nursing care and rehabilitation services are cared for at the Tuen Mun Hospital (200 beds), the Caritas Medical Centre (300 beds) and the Siu Lam Hospital (300 beds). An outreach team has been established to provide services for severely mentally handicapped persons in the community.