In 1993 the Secretary of State for Health announced a Ten Point
Plan for developing safe and successful community care in response
to public and professional concern about the care of people with
severe mental illness. One of these ten points called for a review
by the Clinical Standards Advisory Group (CSAG) of the standards of
care for people with schizophrenia.
The College Research Unit was asked to collate
existing statements of clinical standards and was then commissioned
to carry out a study to assess standards of NHS mental health
services in eleven UK health authorities. The subsequent report was
published in 1995.
The CSAG report highlighted concerns about mental
health services and was one of the factors that led the Minister of
Health at that time writing to the health authorities asking for
implementation of the Care Programme Approach. The CSAG service
evaluation protocol has been applied by visiting teams to a number
of mental health services since the completion of the project. It
is also being used by the Health Advisory Service (HAS 2000) as the
basis for further development and refinement in methods for
reviewing mental health services.