Mental Health Services (NSMHS)

HDAA is approved to provide assessments to the National Standards in Mental Health Services. We have provided expert assessments to mental health Services seeking accreditation to the National Standards in Mental Health Standards since 2010.

In 2010 a revised set of mental health service standards were released. These standards can be applied to all mental health services, including government, non-government and private sectors across Australia.

These National Standards for Mental Health Services 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

The Australian Commission on Safety and Quality in Health Care has released a work book designed for service preparing for assessment to the National Standards in Mental Health Services, which you can access here.

HDAA can provide an excel based “Self-Assessment” to the National Standards in Mental Health Services. This self-assessment system creates an improvement action plan which can then be used to plan and monitor your progress with preparation for assessment.

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

To prepare for an assessment to the National Standards in Mental Health Services we will provide a Service Description form to start to learn about you, what type of mental health service your organisation provides, how and where and to confirm the scope of your assessment.