The Mental Hospitals Department was established in 1950 as independent from the Public Health Department (1911 - 1984). Newspaper records of the time indicate a sub-department dealing with mental hospitals existed as early as the 1920s. In 1954 the Mental Hospitals Department was replaced with the Mental Health Services Department (1954 - 1984). It is likely this change reflected the radical transition in attitudes, scientific understandings of and treatment options for mental illness. In the lead up to this shift new medications had been introduced, numerous inquiries had been held into the conditions inside mental institutions, and a wave of returned service personnel had both increased demand for mental health services and brought the need for short term mental health treatment into the public eye. The 1950s saw the establishment of day hospitals and hospitals for people deemed "recoverable".
Early mental health care in Western Australia
The administrative body responsible for the management of what were known as Insane Asylums in the late 19th and early 20th century alongside medical treatment and psychiatric research is complicated. In the beginning it appears responsibility was split depending on whether the patient was a convict or settler. The British and Convict Establishment (1850 - 1887) was responsible for convicts and the Colonial Government was responsible for settlers. From 1900 onwards doctors and superintendents working with people experiencing mental health issues oscillated in their reporting between the Chief Secretary's Department (1924 -1983) and the Public Health Department (1911 - 1984).