Report of the Committee on Social Workers in the Mental Health Services.

  • Great Britain. Committee on Social Workers in the Mental Health Service.
Date:
[1951]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Report of the Committee on Social Workers in the Mental Health Services. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    6/58 (page 6)
    4. The cause of this situation is not merely the normal pressure for expansion of the social services, a pressure which one would have expected to be applied in the post-war reconstruction. The National Health Service Act of 1946 has had a decisive effect in bringing into prominence the need for extending non-medical services of many kinds in the broad realm of public heakth. Ideally, the effect of increasing these auxiliary services is to rationalise the use of the more highly trained and expensive medical personnel and in practice this can be to a considerable extent achieved. Many years ago one of our progressive provincial towns employed medical officers to undertake home visiting of infants and young children; the scheme was effective but it was shown that good results could be secured by the employment of health visitors whose training was designed for that special purpose. So to-day in the sphere of mental health we ought to consider the best and most economical use of medical and non-medical staff. Again, the National Health Service Act of 1946 aimed at closing the breach between the services for mental and physical illness as had been recommended by the Royal Commission on Lunacy and Mental Disorder, 1926, in these striking words :— ‘““ That the treatment of mental disorder should approximate as nearly to the treat- ment of physical ailments as is consistent with the special safeguards which are indis- pensable when the liberty of the subject is infringed; that certification should be the last resort and not a necessary preliminary to treatment; and that the procedure for certification should be simplified, made uniform for private and rate-aided cases alike and dissociated from the Poor Law.” Since the National Health Service Act came into force considerable progress has been made in these directions: each regional hospital board has appointed a mental health committee, and a psychiatrist has been attached to the medical staff of most of the boards to advise on the co-ordination of the mental health services. In addition, expert advisory mental health committees have been formed in many areas. As this organisation has been developing, the need for trained social workers in the national hospital service has become more and more apparent and their value in linking the care of mental and physical illness is obvious. 5. The social services of local health authorities also are profoundly affected by the National Health Service Act; in addition to the specific duties laid down for the ascertainment, community care and training of mental defectives, and for the ascertainment and follow up of persons suffering from mental illness, local health authorities are empowered to make general arrangements for the prevention of mental illness. These matters are dealt with more fully later but in this introduction it is necessary for us to emphasise that the demand for social workers in the mental health services, which was in any case increasing, has been strengthened by the National Health Service Act. OBSERVATIONS ON THE ENQUIRY SCOPE AND METHOD OF APPROACH 6. We understood that the submission of an Interim Report on psychiatric social workers, mentioned in our terms of reference, was a matter of some urgency and we regarded it as our first duty to consider this aspect of our subject and in particular to study means for relieving the acute shortage of psychiatric social workers: we accordingly gave priority in discussion and in receiving evidence to the examination of schemes designed to train assistants in psychiatric social work. At the same time, in order to achieve a right perspective, we maintained a survey of the broader problem of supply and demand, training and qualifications of other social workers in the mental health services. 6 ee ee