“My whole mental power has disappeared, I have sunk intellectually below the level of a beast”(a patient with schizophrenia, quoted by Kraepelin, 1919, p. 25).

Mistakes are inevitable in any branch of medicine, but psychiatry is a particularly risky business (Holloway, 1997). When psychiatrists get it wrong there may serious consequences for their patients, the clinical team and the wider public. The Government introduced a series of initiatives in the 1990s: the Care Programme Approach (1990), the supervision register (Department of Health & Home Office, 1994) and supervised discharge (Secretary of State for Health, 1997). One of the main purposes of this legislation was to minimise the risk psychiatric patients pose to the community. Future service provision will be shaped by clinical governance and the National Service Framework for Mental Health (Secretary of State for Health, 1997), and evaluation and management of risk will become increasingly important.

This paper will describe the increasingly important role of the community psychiatric nurse (CPN) in the treatment and management of people with schizophrenia, and draw attention to new training programmes which have a focus on skills acquisition in evidence-based methods. However, before describing the way in which these programmes of training improve CPN skills, it is worth examining the history of community psychiatric nursing.

Schizophrenia is a devastating chronic disorder that typically presents in early adult life and impacts on a broad swathe of social and psychological functioning. It is not surprising that psychiatrists have tended to be circumspect about making this ominous diagnosis in children and adolescents. Genuine concerns about the validity of applying ‘adult’ psychotic diagnoses in this young age group, together with the lack of diagnosis-specific interventions, have suggested a cautious approach to diagnosis. Furthermore, the relative rarity of schizophrenia in this age group has meant that most psychiatrists have relatively little experience with ‘atypical’ early presentation of the disorder.

In recent years there has been a marked increase in the proportion of individuals with mental disorders detained in hospital involuntarily, compared to those admitted on an informal basis (Wall et al, 1999). There is also growing concern about legally incompetent patients being treated under the doctrine of necessity (Eastman & Peay, 1998). The rise in the numbers of detained patients may have come about for a variety of reasons. Suggested possible contributory factors include a reduction in psychiatric hospital beds; the move towards community care and the consequent tendency to maintain patients at home for longer; increasing comorbidity and more severely disturbed behaviour on hospital wards; and a greater number of individuals transferred to hospital care from the criminal justice system (Mental Health Act Commission, 1999). Statutory mental health legislation in the UK has remained essentially unchanged, in some cases, for nearly 15 years. There have been additions and amendments during that period, as well as new law. For instance, the Mental Health (Patients in the Community) Act 1995, dealing with the care and treatment of people with mental disorders, and the Criminal Evidence (Amendment) Act 1994, covering specific issues to do with certain groups of those suffering from psychiatric disorders. Despite this there is clear evidence from recent research from various parts of the UK that medical practitioners, most particularly psychiatrists, and even those using the Mental Health Act on a day-to-day basis, do not necessarily possess a detailed knowledge of the law. Among a random sample of Section 12(2) approved medical practitioners in the West Midlands, none of those interviewed was able to define the term mental disorder as used in the Act, and only just over one-third correctly identified the four legal categories of mental illness, mental impairment, severe mental impairment and psychopathic disorder (Bhatti et al, 1999). In similar studies undertaken in Scotland, only one in 10 of a national sample of consultant psychiatrists was able to give the statutory definition of the term mental disorder (Humphreys, 1998) and among a similar non-consultant sample only 28% were able to give the correct title and year of the Mental Health (Scotland) Act 1984 (Humphreys, 1997). It would seem important, therefore, that psychiatrists do not become complacent about their knowledge and use of the Act, even though there has been considerable debate around the issue of how much expertise and precise factual knowledge of specific legislation is actually required.

It has been recognised for many years that patients with psychiatric illnesses, especially schizophrenia, smoke to excess. However, recently there has been a resurgence of interest in the high prevalence of nicotine addiction in patients with schizophrenia. It has become increasingly clear that heavy cigarette smoking is intimately associated with the schizophrenic illness and that this may have implications for the underlying neurobiology of schizophrenia.

Mental health legislation must steer a course between Scylla and Charybdis. Scylla represents the notion of individual liberties; Charybdis represents the notion of safety and, in particular, public safety. At the time of writing a Green Paper is expected in 1999, so reform of the Mental Health Act 1983 is on its way. Meanwhile, does the new Code of Practice (Department of Health & Welsh Office, 1999), in force since 1 April 1999, give us any indication as to the course we might be steering?

Depression is a frequently occurring symptom in schizophrenia. While today it is often underrecognised and under-treated, historically such symptoms were the focus of much attention. Affective symptoms were used by Kraepelin as an important criterion with which to separate dementia praecox from manic–depressive illness. Kraepelin also recognised the importance of depression as a symptom in schizophrenia and identified several depressive subtypes of the illness. Mayer-Gross emphasised the despair that often occurs as a psychological reaction to acute psychotic episodes and Bleuler considered depression to be one of the core symptoms of schizophrenia.

Relapse in schizophrenia remains common and cannot be entirely eliminated even by the best combination of biological and psychosocial interventions (Linszen et al, 1998). Relapse prevention is crucial as each relapse may result in the growth of residual symptoms (Shepherd et al, 1989) and accelerating social disablement (Hogarty et al, 1991). Many patients feel ‘entrapped’ by their illnesses, a factor highly correlated with depression (Birchwood et al, 1993), and have expressed a strong interest in learning to recognise and prevent impending psychotic relapse.

The purpose of this review is briefly to consider the biological basis of depression and to attempt to illustrate how antidepressants produce their beneficial effects by correcting these abnormalities.

In May 1999, the National Confidential Inquiry into Suicide and Homicide by People with Mental Illness published its first major report since it was reestablished at the University of Manchester (Appleby et al, 1999a). Entitled Safer Services, it presented findings from a two-year sample of suicides and an 18-month sample of homicides occurring in England and Wales, and on the basis of these put forward 31 recommendations for mental health services (Appleby, 1999b; Shaw et al, 1999). This article, modified from a chapter in Safer Services, discusses how services might deal with the risk of suicide and homicide or serious violence.

The Thorn Initiative was put together by a group of people, most of whom were researchers who had conducted randomised controlled trials on various kinds of social treatments. Isaac Marks had worked on assertive community treatment (ACT), whereas my experience was in family work for schizophrenia, as was that of Nick Tarrier. In addition, Tarrier had carried out a recent trial of cognitive approaches to reducing delusions and hallucinations. It was rather like trying to turn an assemblage of prima donnas into a chorus, and it is a tribute to the personal qualities of Jim Birley that he succeeded in this seemingly impossible task.

Conventional antipsychotic drugs remain one of the mainstays of treatment of schizophrenia and related psychotic disorders. The therapeutic efficacy of these drugs is well established, both for treatment of acute symptoms and in relapse prevention. Unfortunately, they are associated with a broad range of side-effects, the most prominent of which is the development of a variety of movement disorders (see Box 1). Compared with the conventional antipsychotic agents, the newer, atypical antipsychotics have a lower liability for the acute extrapyramidal side-effects (EPS) and, for a few of the new drugs, there is some evidence of a lower risk of tardive dyskinesia (Barnes & McPhillips, 1999). Nevertheless, even with these newer agents, movement disorders are seen in a significant proportion of patients.

Community psychiatric teams are an integral part of modern mental health services. The development of such teams has allowed the care of patients to be transferred from institutions to the community. A Cochrane review of community-based programmes showed that community team-based psychiatric services led to a reduction in suicide rates, improved patient engagement and were more acceptable to patients (Tyrer et al, 1999). Community care also reduces the number of days patients stay in hospital, but not the number of admissions (Marshall et al, 1995). However, community mental health teams (CMHTs) have been criticised for their ambiguous and overambitious aims, and their tendency to neglect people with the most challenging health- and social-care needs (Patmore & Weaver, 1991; Sayce et al, 1991). All mental health workers are not necessarily eager, or skilled, to work effectively in teams. Building and maintaining an effective team requires commitment, clarity of purpose, a shared vision and frequent review of team operations. In a previous issue of APT, Burns & Guest (1999) described the adaptation and running of an assertive community treatment team in an inner-city area. Here I examine the attributes of effective CMHTs (Box 1), enumerate barriers and challenges to team-working (Box 2) and suggest strategies for improving team effectiveness (Box 3).