Opening the Door

A Study of New Policies for the Mentally Handicapped

Kathleen Jones, John Brown, W. J. Cunningham, Julian Roberts, Peter Williams

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2023
• Print ISBN: 9781032538648
• eBook ISBN: 9781000913798
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Minority Studies
• Index: Social Sciences

First published in 1975, Opening the Door is a survey of policies and problems in services for the mentally handicapped. It describes the improvements which have taken place since 1969, when the inquiry into conditions of patients at Ely hospital in South Wales stimulated public concern into the quality of life of many mentally handicapped people in hospital. The authors discuss the continuing gap between the idea – as laid down in the 1971 Government White Paper, Better Services for the Mentally Handicapped, which set out a blueprint for development in the 1980s that was to make the antithesis of 'hospital' or 'community' obsolete – and the reality. The study is based on detailed work in one Region by a team of staff and postgraduate students in the Department of Social Administration and Social Work at the University of York. The survey covers hospital provisions, with special attention to nursing attitudes and to problems of the 'back wards,' the relationship between hospitals and their surrounding communities, and the development of local authority social work and residential care services. This book will be of interest to students of social administration, social policy and health.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title
• Copyright
• Original Title
• Original Copyright
• Contents
• Tables
• Figures
• Preface
• 1 The policy background
• 2 The hospitals
• 3 Life on the wards: needs and resources
• 4 Nursing attitudes
• 5 Problems of the ‘back wards’
• 6 Hospital and community
• 7 Community care
• 8 The idea and the reality
• 9 Summary and conclusions
• Postscript
• Appendix 1: a case conference at Maple Grange
• Appendix 2: time schedule for the project
• Appendix 3: checklist on hospitals for the mentally handicapped as social sub-systems
• Appendix 4: job description for community service organisers
• Appendix 5: notes on the methodology of the attitude survey
• Notes
• Index