Guidance will help to take the pressure out of risk assessment, says Daniel Allen

Looking back at my detailed records I can calculate that I spent 6.8 per cent of my time as a mental health nurse engaged in direct patient care, 12.3 per cent drinking tea and the remainder of the time worrying. Factor in my off-duty day-time worrying, plus my tendency to wake in the night sweating over some minute action which, crazed by insomnia, I believed was certain to have fatal consequences, it is a miracle I did not end up a patient myself.