There is no understanding or provision of gender specific services, and the need for these changes to be women-led, which can then be implemented across statutory services.

There is currently no cross sector approach to providing services to women with mental health needs who may access multiple services, with women being labelled and boxed into using one specific service.

Research underpins and policy demands gender-specific services – but policy is not translated into practice in statutory services and next to nothing happens on the ground unless a service has a rare champion on the team.

A lot of public money is ploughed into statutory services that women with mental health needs use, and if services are not gender-specific, they not only do not meet women’s needs, but they can undermine the work being delivered by specialist voluntary sector organisations.

The drive for change needs to be woman-led, giving women a strong voice, with the Network being a champion of this change.