Abstract
The recent reorganization (1990) of the structure of the National Health Service (NHS) is already having an impact on the regional forensic psychiatry services — evidence is presented from information from regional health authorities about the increasing trend to devolve purchasing of these services to individual districts. The introduction of the purchaser/provider split could be used to devise new financial mechanisms to improve the co-ordination and integration of all forensic psychiatry services, to reduce transfer delays, improve appropriateness of placements and increase the efficiency of the services. Two possible models are presented as to how the services might use the new mechanisms for patient benefit.

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