While hospital emergency departments across Australia have an important role in the care of people with mental illness, there is an increase in presentations to emergency departments, due to a lack of capacity to directly admit to mental health inpatients units.

Consumers will frequently be sent to emergency departments as a place of safety with a decision to admit already been made by a community team. As healthcare services across Australia continue to struggle to meet the demands of mental health presentations to emergency departments, in some states the admission pathway now informally includes an emergency department with direct admission becoming the exception.

On 27 March 2024, the Northern Health Mental Health Division is bringing together medical, nursing, allied health, legal counsel and lived experience staff to discuss and redefine admission pathways for mental health consumers at the Ibis Melbourne.

This conference will expose you to new viewpoints, strategies and approaches to redefine admission pathways for mental health consumers to ensure that we start to move away from the notion of using emergency departments as a step in the admission pathway for consumers in need of admission.

It will provide an opportunity to share views and ideas with healthcare peers and a panel of experts including senior clinical, operational, lived experience staff and legal counsel.

Click on image below to register:

Program Objectives:

• Highlight the challenges, acknowledge the limitations and review the current evidence.
• Consider medico-legal perspectives.
• Explore the lived experience perspective of presenting to ED.
• Define medical clearance in an emergency department and its impact on the direct admission pathway.
• Understand how programs like PACER impact on diverting people from ED and the direct admission pathway.
• Review community mental health process and procedures for alternative options to ED presentations and planning admissions.
• Examine approaches to bed management that will support direct admission.
• Present the key ingredients for direct admissions and strategies for re-establishing pathways for direct admissions.

Who should attend:

• Mental Health and Emergency Department clinical staff
• Clinical staff
• Bed access and patient flow coordinators
• Mental Health community program managers
• Police and Ambulance staff

Any queries about the conference? Email NHMHGP@nh.org.au