Abstract
This chapter investigates the impact of the quality of life (QoL) construct on mental health policy and resource allocation, with a focus on the care and treatment of people with a diagnosis of schizophrenia or other functional psychoses. We review the many approaches that have been taken towards QoL and the impact of schizophrenia on the individual, family and society. The role of QoL in public policy in general and in particular the salience of specific measures of health-related quality of life (HRQoL) is discussed. A brief analysis of recent mental health policy documents from seven Anglophone documents is presented – from which it is concluded that QoL is losing out to the rhetoric of ‘recovery’. We end with a discussion of the real-world drivers for resource allocation and the often tenuous link between policy and practice.