Why are community psychiatry services in Australia doing it so hard?

Abstract

• Since the National Mental Health Policy was implemented in 1992, dissonance between mental health professionals and the general public on the success of the deinstitutionalisation components of the strategy has grown. • Many of the premises on which the deinstitutionalisation components were based are false, and this has led to many problems in the system. • Community psychiatry is not fundamentally flawed, and what has been learned in the past 15 years can be used to build on the foundations that have been laid. • Better cooperation between state and federal governments is needed to effect real change.