There have been major changes to mental health services internationally in recent years revolving around the concept of care in the community. Although speed of change and precise service mechanisms differ between countries there is nevertheless increasingly widespread consensus on key components essential to adequate care provision. This in turn provides an opportunity to develop a widely acceptable model framework to direct future developments. There is certainly still room for reform in recognition of specific needs and improvements in treatment and care intervention. This book proposes a simple model which can be used as a guide to increased clinical effectiveness through focused evidence-based reform. Using a time/space framework, it is intended to act as a practical aid to diagnosis of strengths and weaknesses in services that will be used by care providers, trainees and planners both at local and higher levels.

'A watershed in writing about the mental illness services … nothing will ever be quite the same again; it is a book certain to be widely read and quoted.' Professor Sir David Goldberg
'The Mental Health Matrix is lucidly written in such simple and spare language as to make its concepts transparent, free of cant and of special pleading. For all these reasons, it should have a profound impact on the provision of mental health services.' Professor Leon Eisenberg, from the Preface
'This book deserves to be a success because it is articulating the voice of an emerging part of psychiatry with … public mental health.' British Journal of Psychiatry