Recent Developments in the Care, Treatment, and Rehabilitation of the Chronic Mentally Ill in Britain

Just as the deinstitutionalization movement has swept the United States in recent years, the effort to provide alternatives to public hospitals has been government policy in Britain for the past 20 years. While problems remain, Britain, which reduced its mental hospital census less than America, has had some success in finding proper community treatment and care for its former hospital patients, especially the chronically disabled. The author describes recent developments in the administration and organization of services for chronic patients and in clinical practice. The effects of new legislation and several government reports on community care are outlined, as are two new experiments in finding community housing for former hospital patients. Developments in biological psychiatry, use of depot neuroleptic therapy, electroconvulsive therapy, and industrial therapy are also briefly mentioned.