Example of intermediate care: the new Lambeth Community Care Centre.

Pressure on the British health service in the past decade has led to many difficult decisions. In several areas small or peripheral hospitals have been closed to centralise secondary care and reduce expenditure. In 1976 the Lambeth Hospital was one of the first casualties of what has since become a national trend. Yet on 20 November 1985 the Prince and Princess of Wales will visit the site of the original hospital to celebrate the opening of a new small unit in south London that represents a step forward in health care appropriate to urban areas. In this environment there are many patients whose conditions need the skills of the medical or nursing generalist but who for lack of home care, community support, or adequate preventative measures end up on a specialist hospital ward not designed for their needs. For such patients this experience may be difficult and even dangerous, for their carers it is often frustrating and demotivating, and for the health service it is usually expensive and wasteful. Health care in the 1980s should provide a more appropriate and economic response, which at the same time enables the resources of the neighbouring hospital to be used more effectively. One answer to this, combining the innovative with the traditional, is the new Lambeth Community Care Centre. Intermediate care in the city