National Standards for Mental Health Services

HDAA has been approved since 2010 to provide assessments for mental health service providers to the National Standards in Mental Health Services (NSMHS). Released in 2010, the standards can be applied to all mental health services, including government, non-government and private sectors across Australia.

The standards focus on:

• how services are delivered;
• whether they comply with policy directions;
• whether they meet expected standards of communication and consent;
• whether they have procedures and practices in place to monitor and govern particular areas — especially those which may be associated with risk to the consumer, or which involve coercive interventions.

They are not intended to apply to services where mental health is not the main focus of care, such as generic community services which support people with a range of disabilities, or generic aged care services.

How Mental Health Services Are Assessed

HDAA will provide a Service Description to identify what type of mental health service your organisation provides and to confirm the scope of your assessment.

We can provide you with a self-assessment system to enable you to develop an improvement action plan which can then be used to assist your organisation with planning and monitoring during assessment preparation.

Contact us for a copy of the self-assessment system.

Resources For Mental Health Services

For more information about the scheme, please see:

• National Standards for Mental Health Services (NSMHS) scheme requirements (pdf)
• Department of Health resources
• The Australian Commission on Safety and Quality in Health Care’s user guide