Reorganization of Psychiatric Services in the Sydney Metropolitan Area

An outline is given of the historical background of current attempts to modernize State psychiatric services in New South Wales. A four-phase developmental pattern in the current decentralization of facilities is described, with special reference to some traditional institutional obstacles to progress in the task of attaining an enhanced relatedness of services to community needs. It is concluded that a major deficiency in the current organization of the State-sponsored services is the lack of systematic evaluation of the effectiveness of programmes established in the past few years.