Schizophrenia: management and care in the community

The move to community care has resulted in many more individuals with severe mental health needs relying on community services. Community facilities did not receive the proceeds from hospital closures and this had led to inadequate provision and facilities for individuals with severe mental health needs. There also appears to have been a lack of effective interventions and skills for dealing with this specific client group. The National Framework Strategy (Department of Health, 1999) for mental health outlines ways to modernize mental health services and aims to ensure that they will be more accessible, more effective and coordinated across health and social care. Over the past decade, there has been a great deal of research examining the effectiveness of psychosocial and family interventions for individuals with psychosis. This article discusses how such interventions could address some of the shortcomings of community care for the severely mentally ill.