Book excerpt: This book is about the lives of patients, about the health and social care services provided to help them, and about ways of examining the impact these services make on them. Based on the authors' experience of using and developing a particular operational measure, the Lancashire Quality of Life Profile, which has been used successfully in many different studies and countries, it provides managers and practitioners in mental health with valuable normative data, insights and ideas about the role of QOL in service evaluation.