What is Hoarding Disorder?
Hoarding is considered a significant problem if the clutter:
- interferes with everyday living (e.g., the person is unable to access rooms in their home);
- is causing significant distress/negatively affecting the quality of life of the person or their family.
The difference between a "hoard" and a "collection" is how items are organised.
Collection: items are well ordered and easily accessible (e.g. stamp collection/scrapbook).
Hoard: items are very disorganised, take up lots of room and largely inaccessible.
Diagnosing Hoarding Disorder
Penrose Health Action Plan
⚠️ Safety netting
Always review any safeguarding concerns when seeing patients with dementia or learning disabilities (see Adult Safeguarding).
Patient Journey - Determining Schedule of Reviews
Perform assessment for any concurrent diagnosis (e.g. Depression, Psychosis, OCD). If assessment/history suggestive, discuss with GP for appropriate management → rebook and follow that pathway.
If considering commencement or change of medication → book appointment with GP.
If no other concurrent diagnosis, patient willing to seek help, and not managed in secondary service, consider the following:
- book with Care Coordinator (see Booking a Care Coordinator Appointment).
- social prescribing (see Social Prescribing).
- signposting to community services/psychological therapies (e.g., NHS Talking Therapies, see below).
Referring/Signposting Onward
Below are some services to which you can signpost/refer patients. More services can be found on the Penrose Portal in Mental Health Services Database.