ABSTRACT
Deinstitutionalisation involves the closure of large institutions providing longterm forms of care for needy groups such as the mentally ill, mentally handicapped, elderly ill or disabled, and their replacement by a variety of ‘community-based’ forms of care. The latter can involve smaller, purpose-built facilities or it can involve care within private households supported by families, relatives and friends and teams of community-based professionals such as nurses, doctors and social workers. Deinstitutionalisation has often been linked with a shift in provision towards care by the voluntary and private sectors as well as within households. The process is therefore linked with the policies of rationalisation, privatisation, voluntarism and self-provisioning noted above.
