Instant lithium monitoring

Lithium therapy for affective disorders has been estimated to result in savings of hospital beds in the National Health Service of £23 million each year. In order to maintain and justify this saving we must invest to provide careful monitoring of serum lithium concentrations in patients living in the community. In recent years the advent of lithium clinics has done much to improve the compliance and safety of lithium therapy (Masterton et al , 1988), but we believe that there may be scope for further improvement both in the service to the patient and in encouragement of the patient to comply.