Care in the community - Julian Leff

From asylums to psychiatric hospitals to community care in 100 years. Has the transition been worthwhile? This unique 11–year study provides revealing insights into the issues of community care and its future development in the UK, and in Western as well as non–Western countries. It examines the central issues of patient outcomes, service provision and effectiveness, the economies of provision and the impact on staff and community. Under a distinguished editor, authors from the leading centre for psychiatric treatment and research, report the results of the largest and most comprehensive evaluation* of the replacement of psychiatric hospitals with district–based services. The authors address all the key issues of community care: the treatment of different kinds of long–term patient; patient management and outcomes; and the crucial areas of staff training and community attitudes. Now the myths about community care are dispelled with 11 years of hard fact. This book, prepared by practitioners from a broad range of disciplines, yields essential guidelines for the ongoing development of community services and implementation. *In 1985 the Team for the Assessment of Psychiatric Services (TAPS) was established in the UK to evaluate the policy of discharging long–stay psychiatric patients into the community, a policy now implemented in the USA and much of Europe.