Drayton Park Women’s Crisis House has been open for 25 years and provides a safer space for women in acute mental health crisis as alternative to hospital admission. In this time the service has been evaluated and the findings demonstrated that the team were able to offer this service to women would have otherwise gone to hospital but could not offer all women an alternative. It is important to acknowledge the difference between an inpatient service and an alternative to one. Women choose to stay and have capacity to make decisions about whether they want to take medication, and to engage in working towards a plan of safety. Feedback from women is overwhelmingly positive and many women contribute to the development and resilience of the service, but it doesn’t feel safe for everyone and any service, however well intentioned, does not always deliver. It is important to be humble and open to feedback that isn’t always positive and change what we can and acknowledge our limitations.
