ABSTRACT
The pursuit of normalisation was an objective set by many projects and pervades national policy, although on its own it is an inadequate template for an evaluation. Normalisation is a process objective which correctly emphasises the rights and views of individual people with learning difficulties, mental health problems or other long-term needs. The care objectives behind our choice of outcome dimensions are ambitious. To date, many hospital rundown programmes and community care plans, both in the UK and elsewhere, have failed famously to achieve some or indeed any of them. This has left many people distinctly uneasy about the efficacy of today’s emphasis on Care in the Community and the concomitant rundown of hospitals. Costs should be comprehensively measured so as to range over all relevant service components of the care ‘packages’ under consideration. Economic theory advocates using long-run marginal opportunity cost.
