Improving Health and Social Care in Mental Illness Services: A Survey of Health Service Managers in One Region of the UK

National directives in the UK aim to enhance community provision for mentally ill people. One of these initiatives, the Care Programme Approach (CPA) requires health and social services to develop a needs‐led approach; care plans for discharged patients; co‐ordinated“packages” of health and social care and information systems. A survey conducted in the North Western Regional Health Authority area confirms many of the findings of recent work and raises other issues for health and social services managers. These include the need to: recognize and alter bad clinical‐organizational practices;develop assessment and priority rating systems which combine health and social care variables; implement relevant and accessible information systems; and develop adequate, standardized outcome measures for mental health services.