"The second edition of this text offers a critical and contemporary analysis of mental health policy, tracing its relocation from the asylum system to the community as well as assessing policy developments since the Labour government came into power in 1997. It analyses why the cultural legacy of segregation has remained so potent in modern thinking despite the abandonment of the old Victorian 'mad houses'.

And it identifies the processes and causes of recent policy shifts, engaging with current debates about quality of life, adequacy of resources, the rights of patients and their relatives, community care and community safety." "Immensely readable and fully up to date, this new edition will, like its predecessor, be essential reading for students of nursing, social work and social policy and for practitioners as well as policy makers."--BOOK JACKET.