“We have worked exten­sive­ly over 18 months with CMOs, con­sumers, their fam­i­lies and car­ers, plus peer sup­port work­ers and fund­ing bod­ies in the design of these new stan­dards,” says David McGrath, Exec­u­tive Lead, Men­tal Health Stan­dards, for the Aus­tralian Com­mis­sion on Safe­ty and Qual­i­ty in Health Care.

“The out­come is a focus on the con­sumer being at the cen­tre of care and recog­nis­ing recov­ery-ori­ent­ed prac­tice and trau­ma-informed care. It is incred­i­bly impor­tant the indi­vid­ual feels they can dri­ve the care that they receive.

“We don’t expect peo­ple to know auto­mat­i­cal­ly what to do or how to seek help. We are devel­op­ing guides for ser­vice providers. We are also devel­op­ing resources to make it eas­i­er for con­sumers to recog­nise the skills they will need in plan­ning and man­ag­ing their care, and express­ing their point of view when they need some­thing changed. It is real­ly impor­tant to give sup­port and skills to con­sumers to help them take that control.

“For the past decade CMOs have been using nation­al stan­dards designed for all organ­i­sa­tions offer­ing men­tal health ser­vices, includ­ing hos­pi­tals, so they have been delib­er­ate­ly broad. It was recog­nised they were no longer fit for pur­pose for CMOs.”

David says the new stan­dards, which also include sec­tions on mod­els of care and gov­er­nance, are a sig­nif­i­cant step in pro­vid­ing safe­ty and qual­i­ty assur­ance for con­sumers, their fam­i­lies and carers. 

“They will build trust between ser­vice providers and the peo­ple they sup­port, and help con­sumers to feel more com­fort­able about engag­ing with a service.”

About 800,000 Aus­tralians expe­ri­ence severe men­tal ill­ness in any giv­en year and many require extend­ed sup­port on their recov­ery jour­ney. Up to 100,000 Aus­tralians seek men­tal health sup­port from CMOs every year, with the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic high­light­ing the val­ue of pro­vid­ing local men­tal health care.

There are more than 200 CMOs pro­vid­ing men­tal health ser­vices in Aus­tralia. They include helpline ser­vices, coun­selling, accom­mo­da­tion sup­port, self-help and peer sup­port and spe­cif­ic areas such as employ­ment, edu­ca­tion, fam­i­ly and car­er support.

The stan­dards, says David, also rein­force the impor­tance to CMOs that they need to have a bal­ance in their operations.

“It is not just about man­ag­ing mon­ey and human resources, with a focus on the cor­po­rate and legal areas – it is about their prac­tice, their mod­el of care and the con­sumer hav­ing pri­or­i­ty,” he says.

“It is impor­tant to note that many ser­vices already meet the new men­tal health stan­dards, but not nec­es­sar­i­ly all of them,” says David.

“And just because they are doing it now, a CMO’s Board and work­force may change, which can alter their cir­cum­stances. Now that we have these stan­dards, they pro­vide an ongo­ing ref­er­ence point to ensure that ser­vices con­tin­ue to meet the standards.

“The Com­mis­sion is very expe­ri­enced in imple­ment­ing health­care stan­dards. This involves a process of con­tin­u­al improve­ment and all par­tic­i­pat­ing organ­i­sa­tions will be re-accred­it­ed every three years.”

While becom­ing accred­it­ed to the men­tal health stan­dards is not manda­to­ry for CMOs, David expects, as time pro­gress­es, more ser­vices will recog­nise the ben­e­fits of participating.

He says they will pos­i­tive­ly influ­ence the design, devel­op­ment and eval­u­a­tion of ser­vices. Con­sumers, too, will begin to recog­nise those accred­it­ed organ­i­sa­tions and feel secure in their choices.

As accred­i­ta­tion rolls out lat­er this year, new guid­ance will be avail­able to help ser­vices under­stand how to imple­ment the new standards.