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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
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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

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