Safety and Quality in Victoria's Specialist Public Mental Health System

Service Standards

National Standards for Mental Health Services

The National Standards for Mental Health Services (NSMHS) were endorsed by the Australian Health Ministers’ Advisory Council’s (AHMAC) National Mental Health Working Group in December 1996. Since that time, each State and Territory has provided support to mental health services to implement the NSMHS.

The NSMHS emphasise desired outcomes for the mental health of consumers, carers and the wider community, and reflect the rights, dignity and empowerment of individuals. They inform consumers, carers, service providers and the wider community of expected standards of mental health services.

Therefore, the NSMHS provide a useful framework for service delivery and facilitate informed participation of consumers, carers and relevant others in service planning, delivery, evaluation and improvement.

A copy of the NSMHS can be accessed by clicking on the following link: National Standards for Mental Health Services - December 1996 (PDF file 196KB)

Implementation and reporting:

Each State and Territory is monitoring implementation of the NSMHS and reporting to the NMHWG on a six monthly basis.

Victorian public area mental health services were required to commence six monthly reporting of their progress with implementation of the NSMHS in March 2003.

The reporting process encourages services to systematically plan for quality improvement against each of the standards, and review their progress and outcomes on a regular basis.

The Department has published summary feedback reports from each of the individual service reports to facilitate sharing of information, benchmarking and collaboration between services, and to provide guidance on priorities for service quality improvement.

Use the links below to access copies of summary reports:

Victoria's Implementation of the National Standards for Mental Health Services - Progress report - September 2005 (PDF File 480KB)

Victoria's Implementation of the National Standards for Mental Health Services: Progress Report September 2004 (PDF file 206KB)

Victoria’s Implementation of the National Standards for Mental Health Services: Progress Report March 2004 (PDF file 346KB)

Victoria's Implementation of the National Standards for Mental Health Services: Progress Report September 2003 (PDF file 291KB)

Victoria's Implementation of the National Standards for Mental Health Services: Progress Report March 2003 (PDF file 206KB)

Accreditation:

As of January 2003, all Victorian public area mental health services and statewide specialist services under the auspice of health services were either scheduled for or had completed an external and in-depth review against the NSMHS.

The in-depth reviews are being undertaken as part of the organisation-wide Evaluation and Quality Improvement Program (EQuIP) through the Australian Council of Healthcare Standards (ACHS). The EQuIP standards and NSMHS are complementary, however the latter are specific to mental health services.

Standards for Psychiatric Disability Rehabilitation and Support Services

The Standards for Psychiatric Disability Rehabilitation and Support Services (2000) were adapted from the National Standards for Mental Health Services (1996). A copy of the standards can be accessed by clicking on the following link:

Standards for Psychiatric Disability Rehabilitation and Support Services - June 2004 (PDF file 938KB)

Under the 2nd National Mental Health Plan 1998-2003, the Department engaged consultants to explore a range of possible options for monitoring Psychiatric Disability Rehabilitation and Support Services (PDRSS) against the relevant standards.

The consultants conducted a trial of three methods within the sector during 2003. They found that use of self-assessment, peer and consumer-based audits, independent audits and audits with a focus on systems and outcomes, are all appropriate for use within the PDRSS sector.

In 2004, the Department introduced a staged introduction of accreditation for the PDRSS sector. Two streams were developed:

• Stream A - Capacity Building (a quality grant to support small PDRSS to engage in quality planning activities that will develop their capacity to engage in a formal accreditation process in the future)
• Stream B - Accreditation Processes (a quality grant to assist large standalone PDRSS achieve formal accreditation).

The following is the model for PDRSS sector accreditation for Stream B services:

• annual service self-assessment against the complete set of Standards using a self-audit manual;
• the development of a quality improvement report and plan that addresses any gaps identified to the standards arising from the self-assessment process, and submission of this to the Department;
• annual liaison with the regional office on the report and plan to assist with the liaison and support role of the agency liaison officers and assist with the identification of organisational, sector and other developmental issues; and
• external formal audit every 3 years, incorporating the data from the annual self-assessments (including external, peer and consumer auditors, and incorporating the service's self-assessment plans).

A Self-Audit Manual has been developed to provide services with a tool to measure their own performance against the Standards. A copy of the manual can be accessed by clicking on the following link:

Self-Audit Manual for Accreditation (PDF File 580KB)