Concept of Mental Health Workers in United Kingdom

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Concept of Human Services
Mental Health Workers in United Kingdom
The concept of mental health workers in the United
Kingdom, it’s history, trends and future prospects are
outlined in this essay
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Introduction
In this essay, one shall see the advent and the journey of mental health workers in
the United Kingdom. The essay will talk about how the concept of mental health
workers came into vogue, the journey that this profession has gone through. The
legislations associated with the profession and the trends along with, are also part of
the study. It will examine the current scenario and gradually try and understand the
future and the future developments of this profession. The profession of mental
health is very sensitive in terms of handling the patients and understanding their
requirements and accordingly bring them back to a healthy and happy state of mind.
History of Mental Health Workers
The concept of mental health is surrounded by a lot of controversies and varied
understandings, some of them being social stigma and ostracizing the concerned
person. United Kingdom has been the pioneer in dealing with the mental health
issues and in the 1900s the words like lunatic, insanity became popular, however,
these words were gradually replaced by “mental illness”. However, there has been
information about several private asylums that came into vogue in the early 1900s
and took care of the mental health of the patients. The concern about mental illness
dates back to the year 1247, when the first asylum in Europe was built and was
converted into a hospital in the year 1330, however, the first batch of mentally ill
patients was admitted in the year 1407. The Asylum system was stringent in terms of
their dealing with the patients and the way the patients were allowed their daily
routine. There were separate systems for men and women. Gradually in the year
1792, the institution named York Retreat, came into being, the first institution, which
dealt with the patients in a humane manner and considered them to be human
beings who needed therapeutic treatment (Turner et al. 2017).

The drive to close down mental asylums started from the 1960s and the treatment
was moved more towards “community helpers”. This process was established to
helped patients be part of the community while recovering and not segregated in
hospitals. In 1962, Mr Enoch Powell, the then Minister of Health, had put a complete
stop to the mental asylums and eventually, the number of beds in asylums had gone
down from 1,50,000 to 27000 between 1950 and 2012. A new concept called “ Care
in the community” came into being. The demise of the asylums was attributed to the
wrong ideology being used to run them. The patients survived a long sense of
hostility from the society and the benefit of the relatives through financial advantages
after their demise. The old asylums were uncaring and even brutal. However, the
concept of the “care in the community” and the end of asylums are subject to heated
debate and controversy, even in today’s world. The ‘care in the community” had
many loopholes and were recognised in the 1990s and as a result of which a further
sophisticated system was made available for the people with mental disorders
(Cockburn 2012).
At present, the mental health care comes under the hand of NHS or National Health
Services. In the year 1948, NHS was initiated and the authorities got a sudden shock
when they realised that they had to handle 100 asylums in Britain and each with their
own sets of rules, regulations and clinical practices.
Legislations Guiding the Mental Health Workers
Unlike other physical ailments, mental illness can have serious consequences for the
patient’s family or care provider, and occasionally for members of the public,
unconnected to the patient. In 1983, Mental Health Act came into being and this Act
suggested that a person can be forced to accept treatment, if they are detected with