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Specialised mental health service

Definition

Specialised mental health services are those with a primary function to provide treatment, rehabilitation or community health support targeted towards people with a mental disorder or psychiatric disability. These activities are delivered from a service or facility that is readily identifiable as both specialised and serving a mental health care function.

Comments

Guide for use:

The concept of a specialised mental health service is not dependent on the inclusion of the service within the state or territory mental health budget.

A service is not defined as a specialised mental health service solely because its clients include people affected by a mental disorder or psychiatric disability.

The definition excludes specialist drug and alcohol services and services for people with intellectual disabilities, except where they are established to assist people affected by a mental disorder who also have drug and alcohol related disorders or intellectual disability.

These services can be a sub-unit of a hospital even where the hospital is not a specialised mental health establishment itself (e.g. designated psychiatric units and wards, outpatient clinics etc.).

Context:
Hospitals and community mental health establishments and residential mental health establishments.

References


This content Based on Australian Institute of Health and Welfare material. Attribution provided as required under the AIHW CC-BY licence.

Related content

Relation Count
Data Elements implementing this Object Class 39
Data Element Concepts implementing this Object Class 35
As a broader class of 0
As a specialisation class of 0