ABSTRACT
It is perhaps a paradox of contemporary mental health provision that the issues of gender-specific services and practice are still largely unresolved. Given the emphasis that is placed on ‘ensuring a positive experience of care and support’ and ‘protecting from avoidable harm and caring in a safe environment’ taken from No health without mental health (HM Government, 2011a), then, as the authors of this chapter, we will argue again that more needs to be done to achieve inpatient services that are both safe and therapeutic for women.Ten years on, we have an opportunity to assess the extent to which services have achieved the aspiration of the Labor health minister, John Hutton, in 2001 in announcing the strategy ‘into the mainstream’ to ‘ensure that women are listened to and their views translated into real change…’
