ABSTRACT
The Gardener Unit was the first national adolescent forensic service to be established in the UK. The unit was commissioned in 1984 following the recommendations of the Butler and Glancy Report. It is located at the Bolton, Salford and Trafford Mental Health Trust just outside the city of Manchester. Some ten years later the service was the subject of a review, which was undertaken by the Mental Health Act Commission, the Social Services Inspectorate and the Health Advisory Service (NHS 1994). The outcome of the review made far-reaching recommendations for the future strategic development of the service. It concluded that the service offered a combination of facilities which was unique in the UK, as it provided an inpatient assessment and treatment function for adolescents, within a medium-level of security, combined with a community team which was able to offer secondary level services and outreach from the inpatient unit.
