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Hi and thanks for downloading Witness history from the BBC World Service.

I'm Lucy Burns and today we're going back to the summer of 1990

which marked a revolution in the social care system in Britain

with the passing of the Community Care Act. social care

act in Britain with the passing of the community care act. It was the culmination of a

decades long process of moving thousands of people with disabilities out of

long stay hospitals and asylums and into what was known as care in the community.

Many of the old institutions like Rain Hill in northwest England dated back to the 19th century.

Rain Hill Hospital was once one of the biggest psychiatric institutions in Europe.

It was originally designed for 400 patients.

At its peak, it housed more than 3.5,000. It offered asylum for the

sick, the tortured and society's misfits for 140 years.

Michael, that's not his real name, is a disability rights activist. He's got

learning disabilities and he spent most of the early part of his life living in

institutions like Rain Hill. He remembers that society often treated people like him

as loonies who should be locked away from view. They would say, you know loony, yeah, no,

...