ABSTRACT
The child might well have been described as 'unsuitable for education in schools', with the bulk of the care subsequently landing on the shoulders of the family, with little, if any, support from other agencies. Theoretically, the process by which different disciplines might become involved in working with a child with severe mental handicaps has changed dramatically since the early 1960s. There is undoubtedly multiprofessional work going on in the lives of many people with handicaps, but not necessarily through a delineated team. The general practitioner is particularly unconfident in dealing with psychiatric and psychological problems, yet these additional health problems, which ought to present interesting challenges to the general practitioner, are crucial in limiting the handicapped person's engagement in quality-life with others. The idea of sharing such things as computer networks, mentioned above, by primary health care teams, is underpinned by the idea that there will be more shared assumptions.
