UK mental health services envisage that patients with a first presentation of psychosis are seen by an ad hoc assertive service for the first three years and then are transferred for further follow up to a community mental health team or to primary care.

We have reported on the three year outcomes of 62 patients who were treated in such an assertive service, compared to 62 patients who received treatment as usual. Outcomes in all domains were significantly better with the assertive service. These domains included employment, education, family life, relapses, readmission and concordance with medication.

We now report on an audit of outcomes at the end of the fourth year in both groups of patients; the exercise will be repeated at the end of the fifth year.

A note audit is being carried out on the two groups of patients.

Work on the audit is in progress at the time of writing. Early results indicate that some patients have had significant relapses since leaving the assertive service. This has led to significant bed usage by some patients. Other patients appear to have remained stable.

Relapse leads to a reduction of quality of life for the patients. Thus, in some cases there appears to be a reduction in the more advantageous quality of life outcomes once patients are referred to the community mental health team. This mirrors five year outcomes of first psychosis patients reported by the OPUS project.