Common Mental Disorders in Primary Care Edited By Michele Tansella & Graham Thornicroft. London: Routledge. 1999. 244 pp. £55.00 (hb). ISBN 0 415 20572 7

This book was published to mark the retirement of Professor Sir David Goldberg. It brings together distinguished clinicians and researchers from a range of professions involved in primary care, with the aim of helping those working in a variety of primary care and mental health settings. The value and good timing of this publication can be seen in the enhanced position of primary mental health care in Government policy in England. According to the National Service Framework for Mental Health (Department of Health, 1999), primary care and access to specialist services is one of seven standards that health authorities and primary care groups will be responsible for implementing.

Here the reader will find valuable background reading from a broad range of contributors on models of care, training, clinical practice guidelines, epidemiology, computerised assessments and the social and health problems that are common in practice. Important groups such as the elderly and those in developing countries also receive attention. Many chapters represent work in progress by the contributor. Exceptionally, and all the more valuable therefore, are forewards by Rachel Jenkins, on the role of policy development, and by Scott Henderson, reminding readers of the obstacles that have yet to be overcome, for example, in the development of clinically validated assessment tools.

The reader should be encouraged to go further. Since the completion of this volume the long-awaited results of randomised trials have shown how difficult it is to train primary care physicians to become more effective in the management of depression. Indeed, recent US trials indicate the need for specialist practitioner teams using assertive methods, including telephone follow-up of patients who may otherwise default. The importance of providing specific psychological treatments such as cognitive-behavioural therapy in primary care is not a prominent feature of this volume, which is surprising at a time when primary care physicians are beginning to realise the need for more alternatives to psychotropic agents and counselling.

These caveats apart, it would be difficult to find a better start for those determined to venture onwards in search of the latest findings in the field in the leading medical and psychiatric journals. There is no doubt that this volume marks a substantial and lasting body of achievement, without which so much progress could not have followed.