Abstract
These days witness the start of the psychiatric care reform in the Czech Republic, which contains lots of changes including establishing Centres of mental health. Although the authors of this paper do not presume direct cooperation of the Medical assessment service and the Centres, the Medical assessment service is irreplaceable thanks to its role in assessing the disability evaluation applications and the care allowance ones.The presented article points out the changes in disability and care allowance for mental illnesses assessment while showing changes in the number of applications over several years, from the year when the last significant change of assessment criteria was implemented through year 2018.
The authors of the paper state that a swift incorporation of the medical assessment service into the psychiatric care reform could be achieved by including it into the Centres of mental health. The authors consider the inclusion of a physician of the Medical assessment service in the multidisciplinary team of Centres of mental health to be desirable especially from the viewpoint of the assessment process in assessing disability, but it would also be beneficial for Centres of mental health clients' applications for social benefits from non-insurance benefits schemes such as care allowance.
This would create a truly effective and userfriendly approach that would increase the comfort of persons with mental disorders when applying for social benefits conditioned by an adverse health condition.