Transfer of care and shared care

Ensuring safe and effective transfers of care and shared care arrangements is a priority for Victoria’s Chief Psychiatrist. The Chief Psychiatrist has a statutory obligation to provide clinical leadership and guidance to promote continuous quality and safety improvement and uphold human rights.

Chief Psychiatrist’s guideline

This Chief Psychiatrist’s guideline provides a framework to support safe and effective transfers of care and shared care arrangements. This guideline replaces one called ‘Discharge Planning’ to emphasise that treatment, care and support happens along a continuum and services overseen by the Chief Psychiatrist have a responsibility to ensure that the transfer of care is an active process and that it does not end with the provision of a document, often called a ‘discharge summary’.

The guideline provides principles for practice and outlines considerations for different circumstances in which transfers of care or shared care arrangements may occur.

This guideline has relevance to all mental health and wellbeing services, including private providers, and all disciplines working across the mental health and wellbeing sector.

The guideline promotes the important role of the lived and living experience workforce and the ways that peer support can foster approaches to transfers of care and shared care arrangements that are consumer centred and address the holistic needs of consumers, families, carers and supporters.

Chief Psychiatrist's guideline - Transfer of care and shared care

docx 423.58 KB

Chief Psychiatrist's guideline - Transfer of care and shared care

pdf 300.63 KB

Reviewed 11 September 2023