Mental health
People experience mental ill health and distress in all healthcare settings. We have developed guidance for health professionals to support them to deliver safe and high-quality care.
Why is mental health care important?
One in five people report they have experienced mental ill health in the last 12 months and nearly one in two people experience mental ill health in their lifetime.
For some people, distress can happen suddenly, in response to circumstances in their life, including physical illness or accidents, relationship difficulties or natural disasters. It is important that they have access to safe, trauma-informed responses, focused on restoring their capacity to cope.
Other people have long-term mental health conditions. With the right support, people can make decisions about their care that balances their values, goals and preferences with safety.
If you or someone you know needs immediate mental health support, you can contact a range of 24/7 crisis support across Australia.
How we are supporting mental health care
We have a strong commitment to the safe provision of mental health care for people across all health care settings.
We have a variety of guidance and resources to support health professionals providing mental health services.
Using our national standards for mental health services
Our National Safety and Quality Health Service Standards are relevant for many settings and provides the framework for mental health services within public and private hospitals and community services provided by local hospital networks.
By implementing our national standards and meeting certain actions, you are considered to have also met the requirements for safe and high-quality mental health services.
To support implementing our national standards for mental health services, we have user guides and resources for:
Standards for community managed organisations
Our Mental Health Standards for Community Managed Organisations provide best practice guidance for community managed organisations providing mental health services.
Community managed organisations are generally not-for-profit, non-government organisations that provide services for people who experience or are at risk of mental ill health, as well as their families, carers and the broader community.
Standards for digital mental health services
Our Digital Mental Health Standards provide guidance on the level of care a digital mental health service should provide.
A digital mental health service can be a mental health, suicide prevention, alcohol and other drug service delivered via a digital platform such as telephone, videoconferencing, web-based (including webchat) and SMS.
Services can include supplying information, digital counselling, peer-to-peer support, assessment, triage and referrals.
Escalation Mapping Template
Our Escalation Mapping Template (EMT) can be used to assess the effectiveness of systems used to recognise, escalate and respond to the deterioration of a person’s mental state.
It supports health services in mapping and evaluating their escalation processes and review what is and isn’t working.
Our EMT contains links to tools and resources currently used in clinical practice in health settings across Australia and is made up of ten modules that guide the mapping of different aspects of the escalation process. Our EMT provides a template for mapping processes and is not a tool to monitor a person’s mental state.
Our EMT can be accessed online or you can download a version for excel.
Medication safety in mental health
Medication safety in the treatment and management of mental health issues is important.
To understand more about medication safety in mental health services, you can view:
- our literature review on medication safety in mental health, which focuses on medication safety issues in mental health in hospital and community settings and recommends improvement strategies
- our National Adult Clozapine Titration Chart which provides key information on the prescribing and monitoring of clozapine titration.
Recognising signs of deterioration in a person’s mental state
Our National Consensus Statement for recognising and responding to deterioration in a person’s mental state provides guidance to health service organisations to ensure they have the capacity to safely, collaboratively and effectively recognise and respond to deterioration in a person’s mental state.
During consultation on the Consensus Statement, we identified the need for an agreed set of signs to be used when monitoring deterioration in a person’s mental state. Our Report and peer-reviewed literature review resulted in 28 signs of deterioration in a person's mental state, arranged into five indicators:
- reported change
- distress
- loss of touch with reality or consequences of behaviours
- loss of function
- elevated risk to self, others or property.
Mental Health Advisory Group
Our Mental Health Advisory Group was established in 2015 to provide advice, expertise and support for our programs of work in mental health and suicide prevention.
Mental Health Advisory Group members
- Ms Christine Gee (Chair) – Board Member
- Dr Suellen Allen – Director, Director, Clinical Communications, Mental Health and Cognitive Impairment
- Mr Tom Brideson – State-wide Coordinator for NSW Aboriginal Mental Health Workforce Program. National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Leadership in Mental Health representative
- Dr Marc Broadbent – Senior Lecturer, School of Nursing and Midwifery, University of the Sunshine Coast
- Dr Nathan Gibson – Chief Psychiatrist, Western Australia. Safety and Quality Partnership Standing Committee representative
- Ms Judi Higgin – CEO, New Horizons, Mental Health Coordinating Council representative
- Ms Tanja Hirvonen – Lecturer, Mental Health, Centre for Remote Health, Flinders University
- Dr Peter Jenkins – Director, Child and Youth Mental Health, Eastern Health. Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Psychiatrists representative
- Ms Maureen Lewis – Interim Chief Executive Officer, National Mental Health Commission
- Ms Anna Love – Chief Mental Health Nurse, Department of Health and Human Services, Victoria
- Ms Eileen McDonald – Carer representative, National Mental Health Consumer and Carer Forum
- Ms Janne McMahon OAM – Independent Chair, Private Mental Health Consumer and Carer Network
- Ms Anne Mortimer – CEO Northside Group, Ramsay Health. Australian Private Hospitals Association Psychiatric Committee representative
- Ms Heather Nowak Consumer representative, National Mental Health Consumer and Carer Forum
- Ms Cecily Pollard – Safety and Quality Consultant, Tasmanian Health Service
- Associate Professor Morton Rawlin AM – General Practitioner and Chair of the General Practice Mental Health Standards Collaboration Royal Australian College of General Practitioners representative