Access to private space for psychiatric assessments is crucial to facilitate the effective gathering of salient information while preserving the dignity of patients. In this article, we discuss the current availability of private space for liaison psychiatry services on in-patient wards in general hospitals and reflect on how this affects communication with patients. Additionally, we propose solutions for healthcare trusts in addressing this issue.

The discovery of conditions resulting from the expansion of unstable trinucleotide repeats, with their neuropsychiatric presentations crossing the boundaries of different specialties, provides ample opportunity for research and liaison work between medical and psychiatric subspecialties. Clinicians’ awareness of the presentations and genetic basis of these conditions improves management strategies and the quality of life of patients and their carers.

Mental disorders are overrepresented in the criminal justice system, and this applies equally to police custody. These environments are complex and often pressured, and the acuity of the situation, combined with underlying mental disorders, comorbid medical problems and substance misuse, can lead to behavioural disturbance and increased psychiatric risk. Police custody may also present an opportunity to identify and signpost people with mental disorders and vulnerabilities who are ordinarily hard to reach by standard health services. This article considers the purposes of mental health screening of detainees in police custody. It gives an overview of research into screening for a range of psychiatric disorders and vulnerabilities (including substance misuse and traumatic brain injury) and summarises data on deaths in and immediately following release from custody. Given the inadequacy of statutory screening procedures in some jurisdictions, the authors offer a pragmatic evidence-based protocol to guide screening for mental disorders in custody detainees.

Acute mental disturbance associated with physical illness is well described in early medical literature, but it was not until 1 AD that Celsus coined the term ‘delirium’ (Lindesay, 1999). Although delirium has many synonyms that are applied in particular clinical settings (Box 1), all acute disturbances of global cognitive functioning are now recognised as ‘delirium’, a consensus supported by both ICD–10 (World Health Organization, 1992) and DSM–IV (American Psychiatric Association, 1994) classification systems. Delirium is a complex neuropsychiatric syndrome that typically involves a plethora of cognitive and non-cognitive symptoms, resulting in a broad differential diagnosis dominated by mental disorders. Psychiatrists' skills in assessing cognitive function and psychopathology, coupled with their knowledge of psychotropic agents, make them well suited to improving detection, coordinating management and facilitating research into this understudied disorder.