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Carers, the community and the White Paper

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 January 2018

Jacqueline M. Atkinson  and
Denise A. Coia
Jacqueline M. Atkinson
Affiliation:
Department of Public Health, University of Glasgow, 2 Lilybank Gardens, Glasgow G12 8RZ
Denise A. Coia
Affiliation:
Florence Street Day Hospital, Florence Street, Glasgow G5
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The role of relatives as carers of people with chronic mental illness has long been emphasised and was legitimised by Sir Roy Griffiths in his report to the Secretary of State in 1988. The White Paper (Caring for People), however, merely pays lip service to the role of the family. It does not suggest how such help might be provided. There is no reference to relatives, or even ‘informal carers’ (the most recent way of describing relatives), in its sections on provision of services by Social Services or the Health Service. While ‘informal’ is clearly used to indicate ‘unpaid’, it emphasises that relatives, even as carers, are not part of the formal caring process and can, therefore, be ignored as part of the team. If relatives are to be part of the service, as carers, then they need, as Griffiths and the White Paper point out, to receive support and resources to fulfil this role. But what support and services? And who is to provide them?

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Information
Psychiatric Bulletin , Volume 15 , Issue 12 , December 1991 , pp. 763 - 764
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, 1991

References

Atkinson, J. M. & Coia, D. A. (1989) Responsibility to carers - an ethical dilemma. Psychiatric Bulletin, 3, 602–604.Google Scholar
Green, H. (1988) Informal Carers. London: HMSO.Google Scholar
Hatfield, A. B. (1990) Family Education in Mental Illness. New York and London: Guilford Press.Google Scholar
Leff, J. P., Vaughn, C. (1985) Expressed Emotion in Families. New York and London: Guilford Press.Google Scholar
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