Social factors, care and community treatment orders. Service user and practitioner perspectives

Introduction

The 5,365 service users subject to a Community Treatment Order (CTO) in England are in a unique position, since they can have conditions about their care imposed upon them. The fact of being on a CTO identifies these service users as being most ‘in need’ of services and of potential protection. In place since 2008, recent research on CTOs has focussed on effectiveness and on explorations of service user and practitioner views and experiences generally.

This project builds upon existing findings (that indicated, inter alia, positive views about CTOs; degrees of loneliness (compared to being in hospital) and the fact that the stability offered by medication could enable service users to access to social care interventions. The study is an in-depth, mixed methods inquiry with service users and practitioners into what factors, specifically social environmental and care factors and experiences, are associated with the renewal or discharge of a CTO and with recall to hospital.