Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-8ctnn Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-26T03:33:18.309Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Community Care for the Mentally Ill in England and Wales: Myths, Assumptions and Reality*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 January 2009

Simon Goodwin
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

It is widely recognised that there are many problems with the community care policy for the mentally ill which has been in operation in England and Wales since the late 1950s. However, many existing accounts of the development of the policy rest upon a variety of erroneous assumptions about how it has evolved, and which in turn affect our understanding of how it might be changed. Some of these assumptions are examined, and it is argued that frequently they fail to acknowledge how both the rhetoric and the reality of the policy have developed. Taking this critique into account, a more accurate assessment of how to understand community care for the mentally ill is offered.

Type
Articles
Information
Journal of Social Policy , Volume 18 , Issue 1 , January 1989 , pp. 27 - 52
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1989

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

REFERENCES

Abel-Smith, B. and Titmuss, R. (1956), The Cost of the National Health Service in England and Wales, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.Google Scholar
Abrahamsom, D. (1982), ‘Do long-stay psychiatric patients want to leave hospital?’ Health Trends, 14:495–97.Google Scholar
Anton-Stephens, D. (1954), ‘Preliminary observations on the psychiatric uses of chlorpromazine (Largactil)’, Journal of Mental Science, 100, 543–557.Google Scholar
Association of Psychiatric Social Workers (1955), Memorandum submitted to the Royal Commission on mental illness and mental deficiency (chair: Lord Percy).Google Scholar
Audit Commission (1986), Making a Reality Out of Community Care, HMSO, London.Google Scholar
Barton, R. (1959), Institutional Neurosis, Wright, Bristol.Google Scholar
Baruch, G. and Treacher, A. (1978), Psychiatry Observed, RKP, London.Google Scholar
Bennett, D. (1979), ‘Deinstitutionalisation in two cultures’, Milbank Memorial Fund Quarterly, 57:4516–532.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bennett, D. and Morris, I. (1983), ‘Deinstitutionalisation in the UK’, International Journal of Mental Health, ii. 5–23.Google Scholar
Board of Control, Annual Reports, HMSO, London.Google Scholar
Bowen, A. (1979), ‘Some mental health premises’, Milbank Memorial Fund Quarterly, 57, 4, 533–551.Google Scholar
Busfield, J. (1986), Managing Madness: Changing Ideas and Practice, Hutchinson, London.Google Scholar
Carstairs, G.M. and Wing, J.K. (1958), ‘Attitudes of the general public to mental illness’, British Medical Journal, 2, 584–589.Google Scholar
Charatan, F. (1954), ‘An evaluation of chlorpromazine (Largactil) in psychiatry’, Journal of Mental Science, 100, 882–893.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Chief Medical Officer, Annual Reports, HMSO, London.Google Scholar
Cmnd 6233 (1975), Better Services for the Mentally Ill, HMSO, London.Google Scholar
COHSE (1955), Memorandum submitted to the Royal Commission on Mental Illness and Mental Deficiency (chair: Lord Percy).Google Scholar
Corser, C.M. and Ryce, S.W. (1977), ‘Community mental health care’, British Medical Journal, 2 936–938.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Dalley, G. (1988), Ideologies of Caring: Rethinking Community and Collectivism, Macmillan, London.Google Scholar
DHSS (1983), Health Care and Its Costs, HMSO, London.Google Scholar
DHSS (1985), Government Response to the Second Report from the Social Services Committee, 1984–85 Session, HMSO, London.Google Scholar
DHSS, Health and Personal Social Service Statistics for Wales, HMSO, London, selected years.Google Scholar
DHSS, Health and Personal Social Service Statistics for England, HMSO, London, selected years.Google Scholar
Goldberg, D. and Huxley, P. (1980), Mental Illness in the Community: The Pathway to Psychiatric Care Tavistock, London.Google Scholar
Harris, N. (1955), ‘The contribution of psychological medicine to general medicine’, Journal of Mental Science, 101, 1–11.Google Scholar
Hoch, P. (1958), ‘The use of tranquillizers in psychiatry’, Journal of Mental Science, 104, 566–572.Google Scholar
Hordern, A. and Hamilton, N. (1963), ‘Drugs and moral treatment’, British Journal of Psychiatry, 109, 687–690.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
House of Commons (1985), Second Report of the House of Commons Social Services Committee: Community Care with Special Reference to Adult Mentally Ill and Mentally Handicapped People, HMSO, London.Google Scholar
Jones, K. (1972), A History of the Mental Health Services, RKP, London.Google Scholar
Jones, K. (1981), ‘Re-inventing the wheel’, in MIND, The Future of the Mental Hospitals: A Report of MIND's 1980 Annual Conference, Marshallarts Print Services, Brighton.Google Scholar
Jones, K. (1983), ‘Community Care’, in Jones, K. et al. , Issues in Social Policy, (revised ed.), RKP, London.Google Scholar
Klein, R. (1983), The Politics of the National Health Service, Longman, London.Google Scholar
Lader, M. (1979), ‘Drug research and mental health services’ in Meacher, M. (ed.), New Methods of Mental Health Care, Pergamon Press, Oxford.Google Scholar
Macmillan Commission (1926), Report of the Royal Commission on Lunacy and Mental Disorder, Cmnd 2700, HMSO, London.Google Scholar
Martin, F.M. (1984), Between the Acts: Community Mental Health Services 1959–1983, Nuffield Provincial Hospitals Trust, London.Google Scholar
Mental After Care Association (1954), Memorandum submitted to the Royal Commission on Mental Illness and Mental Deficiency (chair: Lord Percy).Google Scholar
Ministry of Health, Annual Reports, HMSO, London.Google Scholar
Office of Population Censuses and Surveys (1986), Morbidity statistics from general practice, 3rd national study 1981/82, HMSO, London.Google Scholar
Peers, V. (1972), Psychiatric Hospitals Viewed by Their Patients, King Edward's Hospital Fund, London.Google Scholar
Percy Commission (1957), Report of the Royal Commission on Mental Illness and Mental Deficiency, Cmnd 169, HMSO, London.Google Scholar
Radical Statistics Health Group (1987), Facing the Figures: What Really is Happening to the National Health Service?, Radical Statistics, London.Google Scholar
Ramon, S. (1985), Psychiatry in Britain: Meaning and Policy, Croom Helm, London.Google Scholar
Reid, H. and Wiseman, A. (1986), When the Talking Has to Stop, MIND Publications, London.Google Scholar
Rollin, H. (1977), ‘Deinstitutionalisation and the community: fact and theory’, Psychological Medicine, 181–184.Google Scholar
Rose, N. (1986), ‘Psychiatry: the discipline of mental health’, in Millar, P. and Rose, N. (eds), The Power of Psychiatry, Polity Press, Cambridge.Google Scholar
Royal Medico-Psychological Association (1954), Memorandum submitted to the Royal Commission on Mental Illness and Mental Deficiency (chair: Lord Percy).Google Scholar
Scull, A. (1984), Decarceration: Community Treatment and the Deviant—A Radical View (second ed.), Polity Press, Cambridge.Google Scholar
Sedgwick, P. (1982), Psycho Politics, Pluto Press, London.Google Scholar
Skultans, V. (1979), English Madness: Ideas on Insanity 1580–1890, RKP, London.Google Scholar
Sturt, J. and Waters, H. (1985), ‘The role of the psychiatrist in community-based mental health care’, Lancet, 1, 507–508.Google Scholar
Titmuss, R. (1963), ‘Community Care—Fact or Fiction?’ in Freeman, H. (ed.), Trends in the Mental Health Services, Pergamon Press, London.Google Scholar
Walker, A. (ed.) (1982), Community Care: The Family, The State and Social Policy, Basil Blackwell and Martin Robertson, Oxford.Google Scholar
Webster, F.C. (1948), ‘Modern trends in the planning of mental hospitals and other psychiatric units in England’, Journal of Mental Science, 94, 99–106.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Wing, J.K. (1979), ‘Trends in the care of the chronically mentally disabled’ in Wing, J.K. and Olsen, R. (eds.), Community Care for the Mentally Disabled, Oxford University Press, Oxford.Google Scholar