‘Gothic Nightmare’

Abstract

This chapter aims to provide the essential background against which the scandals which took place in mental health institutions during the 1960s and 1970s can be understood and assessed. As chapter 1 suggested, scandals are the product of culturally and historically specific reactions to particular events. Such events are themselves shaped by the social policy context within which services are provided in any era. This chapter will end by identifying the key currents running in the social welfare world which produced the first major institutional scandal of modern times — that at Ely Hospital in Cardiff. In order to understand these events, however, the roots of mental health policy over a longer period need to be identified and discussed.