Objectives:To evaluate the association between the degree of integration in community mental healthteams (CMHTs) and: (i) the costs of service provision; (ii) rates of mental health inpatient and carehome admission.Methods:An observational study of service use and admissions to institutional care was undertaken for aprospectively-sampled cohort of patients from eight CMHTs in England. Teams were chosen to repre-sent‘high’or‘low’levels of integrated working practice and patients were followed-up for seven months.General linear models were used to estimate service costs and the likelihood of institutional admission.Results:Patients supported by high integration teams received services costing an estimated 44% morethan comparable patients in low integration teams. However, after controlling for case mix, no signif-icant differences were found in the likelihood of admission to mental health inpatient wards or carehomes between team types.Conclusions:Integrated mental health and social care teams appeared to facilitate greater access tocommunity care services, but no consequent association was found with community tenure. Furtherresearch is required to identify the necessary and sufficient components of integrated community men-tal health care, and its effect on a wider range of outcomes using patient-reported measures.