Care in the Community

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Care in the Community was a policy of the Margaret Thatcher government in the 1980s. Its aim was a more liberal way of helping people with mental health problems, by removing them from impersonal, often Victorian, institutions, and caring for them in their own homes. Also, better drugs became available and this meant that patients could be treated at home. It was also meant to reduce the cost of institutionalizing so many mentally ill people.

Although there have been murders by a few people in the community with mental health problems, it is worth noting that it is far more likely that someone with mental health problems will be subject to attack by someone who is healthy themselves. ^[1]

The National Health Service and Community Care Act of 1990 was passed so that patients were to be individually assessed, and assigned a specific care worker; in the unlikely event that they presented a risk they were to be placed on a Supervision Register. But there have been some problems with patients "slipping through the net" and ending up homeless on the street. There have also been arguments between Health and Social Services departments on who should pay.

In January 1998, the Labour Health Secretary, Frank Dobson, said the care in the community programme launched by the Conservatives had failed (Care in the community to be scrapped, BBC, 1998. Retrieved on September 26, 2005.).