Mental Health Treatment Services for Residents of Aged Care
Wednesday, March 13 2019
The Commonwealth Government has provided funding to Adelaide PHN to commission new mental health treatment services for people who reside in residential aged care facilities. This will help to address a current service gap for this group of people and offer access to psychological services which are similar to those available to people with mental illness in the community under Medicare arrangements.
Access to the new services will generally require a diagnosis of mental illness and are intended to primarily target the needs of residents with mild to moderate mental illness. Although dementia is not regarded as a mental illness, residents with a diagnosis of dementia will not be excluded from the new services if they also have a co-morbid mental illness such as anxiety and depression.
Adelaide PHN will undertake a staged implementation of this initiative focussing initially on co-design with aged care organisations and mental health service providers to develop a model which can meet resident needs, complement the personal care and accommodation services provided by residential aged care and provide linkages to broader support services for residents with complex needs. The model will undergo a six month trial commencing July 2019 and Adelaide PHN aims to expand service availability and reach across metropolitan Adelaide from January 2020.
Industry briefings will be provided for the aged care and mental health sectors in August 2019. To register your interest in attending these briefings, please contact Anna DiSalvatore via email adisalvatore@adelaidephn.com.au.
For more information about this initiative, please contact Anna DiSalvatore via email adisalvatore@adelaidephn.com.au
A PDF of this announcement is attached for printing or download.