How to access these services

Although the options available to treat personality disorder in NHS Highland have increased considerably over recent years, it remains the case that no single intervention represents a complete treatment for personality disorder.

Care and treatment of personality disorder in NHS Highland follows a matched care model and most patients with personality disorder will not require referral to the PDS. Reasons to consider referral to the PDS include:

• Complexity, including lack of response to treatments provided within other settings
• Severity, as indicated by, for example, potentially lethal parasuicidal behaviour or emergency psychiatric hospital admission
• Lack of treatment progress after adequate trial of appropriate treatment, including identified need for a structured intensive Phase 3 (integration or making connections) intervention.

Currently, the PDS only accepts referrals from secondary care mental health services. Discussion of potential referrals with the PDS is encouraged, see below for contact details. The standardised assessment supersedes the previous system used by the PDS where patients were referred for specific interventions such as DBT or CAS Day Service and a single PDS referral form replaces the separate DBT and CAS forms.

The referral form has a clinician-completed component and a patient-completed supporting statement.

Referrals cannot be processed until both parts are received.

It is recommended that patients are informed that they are being referred for assessment rather than for a specific treatment such as DBT, even if it seems likely that this will be offered.

Personality Disorder Service referral form

Contact details