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Caring for People: a critical review of British Government policy for the community care of the mentally ill

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 January 2018

Frank Holloway*
Affiliation:
Camberwell Health Authority, St Giles Hospital, St Giles Road, London SE5 7RN
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The development of ‘community care’ for the elderly, mentally ill, mentally handicapped and physically disabled has been Government policy in Britain since the 1950s. Problems with implementation of this policy led the Audit Commission (1986) to conclude that “the one option that is not tenable is to do nothing about present financial, organisational and staffing arrangements”. Sir Roy Griffiths was commissioned to review “the way funds are used to support community care policy …”. Radical solutions were proposed and subsequently incorporated in the Government White Paper Caring for People (Department of Health, 1989a). However, two very significant measures were not accepted: the ‘ring-fencing’ of community care monies and the creation of a ministerial post within the Department of Health with specific responsibility for community care.

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Articles
Creative Commons
Creative Common License - CCCreative Common License - BY
This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC-BY) license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
Copyright
Copyright © Royal College of Psychiatrists, 1990

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