Review

A policy labyrinth

Out of the Maze: reaching and supporting Londoners with severe mental health
problems
Angela Greatley with Richard Ford
Kings Fund/Sainsbury Centre for Mental Health, 2002. £10.00

Anyone working in mental health will be aware of how the Sainsbury Centre and its offshoot, the Northern Centre for Mental Health, have come to dominate policy regarding services for adults with mental health problems over the past decade.

One day a policy analyst will describe just how the broad direction for services set out in the National Service Framework for Mental Health in late 1999 had, by early 2001, been narrowed down to a set of specific policy implementation guides, each drawing heavily on work linked to the Sainsbury Centre.

This particular report examines the experiences of three teams in London – Antenna Outreach in Haringey, Islington Assertive Outreach and Lambeth Early Onset – between 1999 and 2001. The teams were funded by the Working Together in London initiative, which involved the two organisations publishing the report and the Department of Health.

Each followed an approach based upon assertive outreach/assertive community treatment, although at times they departed from it, with some resemblance to mainstream community mental health teams.

The report is a helpful survey of the experience of the teams, although those already in the field will feel they are in familiar territory. Those new to the area may find it a useful introduction, but departures from the standard assertive outreach approach are significant and I would recommend supplementing the report with other material, such as the booklet freely downloadable from the Sainsbury Centre website.