461. Hon ALISON XAMON to the parliamentary secretary representing the Minister for Mental Health:
I refer to mental health patients who present in state emergency departments and who are being subjected to excessive wait times before being admitted.
(1) What is happening to address the issue of assertive patient flow?
(2) What is the agreement for the management of mental health patients when no beds are available in a particular area?
Hon ALANNA CLOHESY replied:
I thank the honourable member for some notice of the question.
(1) The minister requested that the Department of Health conduct a review of mental health assertive patient flow in partnership with all health service providers and mental health clinicians. This is in recognition of the need for all HSPs to work together to ensure that adequate capacity for patients needing urgent treatment is available within commissioned activity. The outcome of the review was that a new system would be developed whereby HSPs would have primary responsibility for creating beds or community treatment for those people within their catchment who require it. A statewide team will remain to locate available beds across the system when local efforts to provide a bed have been exhausted. The East Metropolitan Health Service anticipates that the implementation of the new system will take place transitionally over a six-month period.
(2) The Department of Health’s statewide mandatory “Assertive Patient Flow and Bed Demand Management for Adult Services: Policy and Practice Guidelines” document includes required processes for the management of mental health patients when no beds are available in a particular area.