From asylums to psychiatric hospitals to community care in 100 years. Has the transition been worthwhile? This unique 11-year study provides revealing insights into the issues of community care and its future development in the UK, and in Western as well as non-Western countries. It examines the central issues of patient outcomes, service provision and effectiveness, the economies of provision and the impact on staff and community. Under a distinguished editor, authors from the leading centre for psychiatric treatment and research, report the results of the largest and most comprehensive evaluation* of the replacement of psychiatric hospitals with district-based services. The authors address all the key issues of community care: the treatment of different kinds of long-term patient; patient management and outcomes; and the crucial areas of staff training and community attitudes. Now the myths about community care are dispelled with 11 years of hard fact. This book, prepared by practitioners from a broad range of disciplines, yields essential guidelines for the ongoing development of community services and implementation. *In 1985 the Team for the Assessment of Psychiatric Services (TAPS) was established in the UK to evaluate the policy of discharging long-stay psychiatric patients into the community, a policy now implemented in the USA and much of Europe.