RCPsych launches Women’s Mental Health Matters strategy

The College launched its first women’s mental health strategy at a successful and inspiring event at the Wellcome Collection on Monday 8 June, where we brought together policymakers, members of the healthcare sector, experts by experience, celebrities and well-known influencers.

The strategy, led by Joint Presidential Leads for Women and Mental Health, Dr Cath Durkin and Philippa Greenfield, is grounded in robust evidence as well as, crucially, in the lived experiences of women and girls. It has been informed by the insights of clinicians, third sector organisations and academic experts, alongside professionals across broader health services.

It highlights how women are dismissed, siloed and misunderstood in a mental health system that continues to fail women. It examines how inequity, gender-based violence and changes in hormone, sexual and reproductive health put women at higher risk of developing mental illness – and often make existing mental health conditions even worse.

Yet, too many women are repeatedly left without the right help, at the right time, by services historically based on male-focused research and data, all compounded by chronic under-investment in women’s health.

The strategy has developed recommendations for stakeholders, including health professionals, such as routine mental and physical health checks throughout women’s lives and services that are trauma-informed.

Read our Women's Mental health Matters strategy
Visit our resource hub on women's mental health care

Launch event at the Wellcome Collection

RCPsych Honorary Fellow, Dame Kelly Holmes and Women’s Health Ambassador for England, Dame Lesley Regan, supported the launch at the event at the Wellcome Collection on Monday with over fifty stakeholders and healthcare professionals.

Speakers included:

  • Dr Gianetta Rands – a retired old age psychiatrist who trained in Oxford and London and worked for 34 years in the NHS.
  • Professor Linda Gask – a primary care mental health expert with extensive experience in women’s mental health, clinical practice and research and author. Her latest book ‘Out of Her Mind’ looks at how we are failing women’s mental health and what must change.
  • Dr Christine Ekechi – a specialist in early pregnancy and gynaecology care.
  • Professor Pooja Saini –a leading expert in suicide and self-harm prevention.
  • Andie Rose – a passionate advocate for trauma-informed care whose work is shaped by over three decades of lived experience.
  • Julie Redmond – a patient from Drayton Park Women’s Crisis House and Resource Centre, who read a poem she had written especially for the event.
WMH launch event - Speakers

L-R: Dr Philippa Greenfield, Dame Lesley Regan, Dame Kelly Holmes, Dr Lade Smith CBE (RCPsych President), Dr Cath Durkin

WMH launch event - Authors and Sonia

L-R: Dr Philippa Greenfield, Dr Cath Durkin, Sonia Walter (RCPsych Chief Executive) and Helen Thorn (Scummy Mummies)

WMH launch event - Lade

Dr Lade Smith CBE

Influencers

Dame Kelly Holmes lent her to support to our public promotion of the strategy through her Instagram channels, sharing our posts and her reflections with her 142K followers. Davina McCall also shared our post with her 2.1m Instagram followers, and Helen Thorn also shared the launch with the Scummy Mummies 196K followers.

Media engagement

Dr Lade Smith CBE has been invited on BBC Radio 4’s Woman’s Hour tomorrow (Friday 12 June) to discuss the topic and the launch of the strategy. Do tune in at 10am!

This article was included in our June 2026 members' update.