Why is psychology failing the average patient?

Visit your local hospital, pick a ward at random, go with the clinical nurse manager to the third bed on the right and ask, 'Who is handling this patient's psychological care and how is it going?' This is my 'average-patient test'. The key point? Despite 20 years of major expansion and research in psychology – and in particular health psychology – the average-patient test will almost always reveal our failure to develop psychological care as part of the thinking, culture and routines of general hospitals and health centres.

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