Adult Mental Health Centres

Overview

The Australian Government is funding a trial of eight Adult Mental Health Centres across Australia, with one to be established in each state and territory. The Centres will be located at:

• Corio (Geelong) – VIC
• Penrith – NSW
• Canberra – ACT
• Launceston – TAS
• Townsville – QLD
• Greater Darwin – NT
• North Perth – WA
• Adelaide – SA

The Centres are designed to provide a welcoming, low stigma, ‘no wrong door’ entry point for adults to access mental health information, services and supports. The Centres are intended to complement, not replace or duplicate, mental health services already provided in the community. For some people, attending a Centre may be their first experience engaging with a mental health service.

Primary Health Networks (PHNs) will be responsible for establishing the Centres in each State and Territory, except in South Australia where SA Health is responsible for the Centre. PHNs will undertake local consultation to co-design and shape services to meet the particular needs of the local area where the Centre is located, within a service model framework informed by this consultation.

Development of the service model

A technical advisory group was established to develop a model of service and principles for the Adult Mental Health Centres trial. Its considerations have been captured in the consultation paper, which is attached as a related document to this consultation. The consultation paper outlines the technical advisory group’s advice on key assumptions underpinning the model of service, how individuals with different needs might access services from the Centres, and what services would be needed in-house as well as through referral.  Advice on considerations such as workforce, flexibilities allowed in the model, and essential safety and quality issues are also set out in the consultation paper.

Note: 

Page 12, Table 1: Possible Multidisciplinary Team Members of the Potential Service Model for Adult Mental Health Centres Consultation Paper July 2020 has been updated to clarify the potential composition of a multidisciplinary team to provide services within the Adult Mental Health Centres.

Appropriately qualified and registered psychologists will be integral to the proposed multidisciplinary team for the Adult Mental Health Centres trial.  Table 1 has been amended to remove any reference to specific study requirements.

Why your views matter

The Department is conducting this consultation to ensure that interested consumers, carers, health professionals and organisations have their say on whether the proposed service model is appropriate to meet the aims of establishing the Adult Mental Health Centres.

IMPORTANT INFORMATION

Privacy and your personal information

The Australian Government Department of Health (the Department) invites you to share your views on the proposed service model for the proposed service model for the Adult Mental Health Centres trial.

Your personal information is protected by law, including the Privacy Act 1988 (Privacy Act) and the Australian Privacy Principles, and is being collected by the Department, via Citizen Space, for the purposes of conducting a consultation process in relation to the proposed service model for the Adult Mental Health Centres trial. The Department will collect your personal information at the time that you provide a submission, unless you choose to make a submission anonymously, and you are not reasonably identifiable from the information provided in your submission.

If you consent, the Department may, at its discretion, publish part or all of your submission on the Department’s website. If your submission is published, the Department may identify you and/or your organisation as the author of the submission, if you consent to being identified.  Please note that your email address will not be published and responses may be moderated to remove content that is inappropriate/offensive, or contains sensitive information.

Submissions which have been published on the Department’s website can be accessed by the general public, including people overseas.  Ordinarily, where the Department discloses personal information to an overseas recipient, Australian Privacy Principle (APP) 8.1 requires the Department to take reasonable steps to ensure that the overseas recipients does not breach the APPs. However, if you consent to the publication of your submission, APP 8.1 will not apply to this disclosure and the Department will not be accountable under the Privacy Act for any subsequent use or disclosure of the submission by an overseas recipient, and you will not be able to seek redress under the Privacy Act.

You should not include information in your submission about another individual who is identified, or reasonably identifiable. If you need to include information about another individual in your submission, you will need to inform that individual of the contents of this notice, and obtain their consent to the Department collecting their personal information.

You can get more information about the way in which the Department will manage your personal information, including our privacy policy, at https://www.health.gov.au/resources/publications/privacy-policy.

You can obtain a copy of the Department’s privacy policy by contacting the Department using the contact details set out below.  The Department’s privacy policy contains information about:

• how you may access the personal information the Department holds about you and how you can seek correction of it; and
• how you may complain about a breach of
  • the APPs; or
  • a registered APP code that binds the Department; and
  • how the Department will deal with such a complaint.

You can contact the Department by telephone on (02) 6289 1555 or freecall 1800 020 103 or by using the online enquiries form at www.health.gov.au.