Department of Health

Chief Psychiatrist guidelines

Browse all the Chief Psychiatrist guidelines

Annual reports

Webinars

The Chief Psychiatrist's ECT Forum could not proceed in 2020 because of COVID-19 restrictions. Four webinars on ECT were broadcast instead to mental health services. The webinars are held here for future reference. They will be of interest to health professionals and consumer and carer representatives.

The webinars (and speakers) concern ECT as a treatment for conditions other than depression (Dr Alby Elias); practical ways to make ECT more effective (Prof Colleen Loo); the role of the ECT Director (Dr Tim Rolfe), and carer and consumer perspectives on ECT (Tanya Wall and Lynne Ruggiero).

Other publications

Family Violence Royal Commission Statement

The Royal Australian College of General Practitioners (RACGP), the Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Psychiatrists (RANZCP) and the Office of the Chief Psychiatrist hereby confirm a commitment to promoting a learning agenda on family violence as a priority for each organisation and to exert any influence possible on undergraduate and graduate University training.

Mental Health Quality and Safety Forums

Information presented at the Mental Health Quality and Safety Forums hosted by Victoria's Chief Psychiatrist.

Report: Assisting mental health services to reduce restrictive practices

Since the commencement of the ‘Creating Safety: Addressing Restraint and Seclusion Practices project’ in 2006, the Chief Psychiatrist has played a key role reducing restrictive interventions within Victorian mental health services, including:

  • development and implementation of policies and guidelines aimed at reducing and, where possible, eliminating restrictive interventions in mental health services
  • capacity building initiatives for the mental health workforce (clinical and administrative) associated with service delivery and reporting processes
  • monitoring, reporting and responding to issues associated with restrictive practices.

The Chief Psychiatrist and Chief Mental Health Nurse teams have played an integral role in supporting these changes through the development of service guidelines, and implementation of a range of initiatives to support services to implement new practices. These include the Reducing Restrictive Interventions - Local Action Plans (2014-16), Safewards (2014 onwards), variance reporting pilot (2014) as well implementation of a range of reporting measures and data analytics.

Assisting mental health services to reduce restrictive practices: A case study about the role of the Victorian Department of Health and Human Services

Quality and Safety Bulletins

The Chief Psychiatrist has undertaken to write two Quality and Safety bulletins each year summarising cases that highlight critical quality and safety themes for the attention of mental health services and mental health community support services.

Quality and Safety Bulletin 2021/1

Quality and Safety Bulletin 2020/2

Quality and Safety Bulletin 2020/1

Quality and Safety Bulletin 2018/1

Quality and Safety Bulletin 2017/1

Audits of inpatient deaths

Chief Psychiatrist's audit of inpatient deaths 2011-2014

Chief Psychiatrist's audit of inpatient deaths 2008-2010

Reducing restrictive interventions literature review and policy analysis

A literature review and policy analysis on the practice of restrictive interventions in Victoria

Coronial recommendations - quality improvement themes

Summaries of coronial findings compiled by the Office of the Chief Health Psychiatrist from 2005 to 2011. These summaries draw together the key clinical practice and standards issues for a given period and highlight areas for quality improvement action.

2011 || 2010 || 2009 || 2008 || 2007 || 2006 || 2005

Reviewed 11 January 2023

Health.vic

Contact details

Office of the Chief Psychiatrist

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