The objective of this study was to describe the history of South Australian Government eating disorder service from the perspective of changing leadership, health policies and politics.
Conclusions:
The history reveals a foundation of early expert academic clinical leadership changing into a centralised managerial bureaucracy correlating with a diminution of services. A threat to the survival of the service led to a solution involving reinvigoration of expert clinical and academic leadership. Expert leadership was shown to be an important part of an eating disorder service.
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