Early mental health and learning disability pharmacy

Early mental health and learning disability pharmacy

It is unclear at what stage the mental hospitals and LD institutions began to employ pharmacists. Although treatments such as insulin shock and medicines such as paraldehyde, barbiturates and bromides were popular before the 1950s, it is likely that any requirements for medicines were managed, in the main, by nurses. The therapeutic revolution following the introduction of chlorpromazine in the late 1940s increased the requirements for a wide range of medicines. However, the isolated nature of the institutions and social attitudes towards mental illness and LD resulted in such employment being unappealing. Typically, such dispensaries were situated between the segre-gated male and female parts of the institutions and the medicines passed through separate hatches so as to minimise the requirements for crossing sectors or for contact between patients and dispensary staff. Despite these problems there were examples of well-developed pharmacy services, for example, Central Hospital, Warwick.