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The Objectives and Performance of the Mental Health Services in England and Wales in the 1960s*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 January 2009

Alan Maynard  and
Rachel Tingle
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Abstract

The objective of this paper is to take the published Mental Health Service objectives of the British Government and to assess the extent to which these objectives had been attained by 1970. Our measures are those of input and the criteria by which we judge the services are those which were set forth in the White papers, the Hospital Plan for England and Wales (1962), and Health and Welfare (1963). By and large we find that the objectives were not met. Simple linear extrapolation of some of the trends in the data make us pessimistic about their attainment prior to 1980. These lessons should condition any optimism about the inevitability of more recent objectives (Department of Health and Social Security [1971] - the Keith Joseph proposals) being attained in the prescribed time period.

Type
Articles
Information
Journal of Social Policy , Volume 4 , Issue 2 , April 1975 , pp. 151 - 168
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1975

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References

1 Hospital Plan for England and Wales, London: HMSO, Cmnd. 1604, 1962.Google Scholar

2 Health and Welfare: the Development of Community Care, London: HMSO, Cmnd. 1973, 1963.Google Scholar

3 Department of Health and Social Security, ‘Hospital Services for the Mentally Ill, Circular No. H. M. (71, 97, (1971)); ibid., Better Services for the Mentally Handicapped, London: HMSO, Cmnd. 4683, 1971.Google Scholar

4 For a useful history of the mental health services see Kathleen, Jones, A History of the National Health Services, London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1972.Google Scholar

5 Hospital Building Programme: a revision of the Hospital Plan for England and Wales, London: HMSO, Cmnd. 300, 1966, p. 3, para. 4.Google Scholar

6 Maynard, A. and Tingle, R., ‘The Mental Health Services: A Review of the Statistical Sources and a Critical Assessment of their Usefulness’, British Journal of Psychiatry, 04, 1974.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

7 The Liverpool Region absorbed a large group of subnormality hospitals (Cranage Hall) in April 1974. These are at present in the Manchester Hospital Region and the reorganization will alter both areas' ratios considerably.

8 The D.H.S.S. pilot survey of 1968 found that, of the patients in the day hospitals studied, less than 8.3 per cent had not received psychiatric treatment. Most day hospitals received their patients after discharge from inpatient or outpatient care. Department of Health and Social Security, A Pilot Survey of Patients Attending Day Hospitais, Statistical Report Series No. 7, London: HMSO, 1969.Google Scholar

9 Ibid., p. 1.

10 For further discussion of the Day Hospital movement see Freeman, H. and Farndale, W. A. J., Trends in the Mental Health Service, London: Pergamon Press, 1963Google Scholar, and Freeman, H., ‘Day Hospitals’, The Practitioner, Volume 205, pp. 289–95Google Scholar, Symposium on Psychology and Psychiatry in General Practice, 1970.

11 1963, op. cit.

12 Absorbed into the education system from April 1971. Education (Handicapped Children) Act 1970.Google Scholar

13 Sub-Committee of the Standing Health Advisory Committee, Report on the Training of the Staff of Training Courses, London: HMSO, 1962.Google Scholar

14 Transferred to the Local Authority Social Services Departments in 1971. Local Authority Social Services Act 1970.Google Scholar

15 Department of Health and Social Security, Health and Personal Social Services Statistics 1972, London: HMSO, 1973.Google Scholar

16 1963, op. cit., p. 24, para. 83.

17 Ibid., p. 25, para. 84.

18 Maynard, and Tingle, , op. cit.Google Scholar