The three main issues discussed were those of: (1) anonymity; (2) revealing the victim’s sexual history; and (3) whether or not women sometimes make false claims of rape.

This memorandum was prepared at short notice by a group of members of the College, representing different interests and with varying experience. The outstanding finding was that few of the questions could be answered clearly and that differences of opinion of a most polar nature occurred in many cases. This was found to be due to two main factors: (a) the perhaps unrecognized fact that the experience of psychiatrists, in general, in connection with cases of rape is surprisingly small; and (b) that rape, in fact, is not a clinical entity but a collection of a number of different forms of sexual behaviour, backed by varied circumstances and personalities, so that single answers to any question from a psychiatric point of view could hardly be expected. We also found that all the issues were closely linked and interdependent.

The recent reorganization of the National Health Service in England and Wales has provided an opportunity for psychiatrists to take part in the planning and development of their local health services. Since extra resources are unlikely to be made available to the mental health services during the next few years this devolution of part of the responsibility for planning means that decisions concerning priorities will more often be made at local level and that psychiatrists will be able to influence them. Each District of a Health Authority area has a Management Team (DMT) with overall responsibility for guiding the Area Health Authority (AHA) in the economic and efficient use of existing resources in the health supporting services in order to meet local needs, and for identifying sections of the services which require expansion, modification or innovation because of unmet need. In order to help them carry out these responsibilities DMTs will appoint ‘Health Care Planning Teams’ (HCPTs) which will consider certain aspects of the services or the needs of any client group thought to require systematic and detailed consideration. The most relevant topics for psychiatrists are mental retardation and adult mental illness, though there will be overlaps with several others, notably geriatrics and child health. Temporary HCPTs may be set up to consider particular issues.

The recent reorganization of the National Health Service in Scotland has provided an opportunity for psychiatrists to take part in the planning and development of health services at both area and national levels.

On 24 September 1975, at Stanley Royd Hospital, Wakefield, Professor Sir Martin Roth formally opened a Museum devoted to psychiatric history—an event so far unique in British psychiatry. The creation of the Museum was the outcome of two years of planning and work by the Yorkshire and Humberside Museum Service, the hospital staff and the first curator, Mr A. L. Ashworth.