TranslateTasmanian Bilateral Agreement for Mental Health and Suicide Prevention
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- The Tasmanian Bilateral Agreement for Mental Health and Suicide Prevention was jointly released by the Tasmanian and Federal Governments on 12 May 2022.
- Under the agreement, more than $46 million will be invested by the Australian Government into mental health and suicide prevention support and services across Tasmania over the next five years. This is in addition to the $108 million announced by the Tasmanian Government in last year’s budget.
- It strongly aligns with the Tasmanian Government’s existing major mental health reforms, including as part of Rethink 2020 and the Tasmanian Mental Health Reform Program.
Summary of key initiatives
These satellite clinics are likely to be located in Burnie, Devonport and the outer Hobart area, in addition to the existing Head to Health Centre in Launceston.
These sites are in addition to the two new Integration Hubs under development at the Peacock Centre in North Hobart and at St John’s Park in New Town, as part of the Tasmanian Mental Health Reform Program.
The Integration Hubs will be co-branded as Head to Health Hubs, will form part of the Head to Health network, and care will be delivered through multidisciplinary teams including lived experience workers.
This process will be undertaken flexibly to consider both Tasmania’s existing CFLC service model and alignment with the Head to Health Kids Service Model principles. The new CFLCs will be co-branded as Kids Head to Health Service Hubs.
These services will provide a multidisciplinary team approach to the care of children and align with Tasmania’s response to the review of the Child and Adolescent Mental Health Service (CAMHS).
This will involve working in partnership to improve access to multidisciplinary youth mental health services, ensuring integration with existing services.
These services will increase access to youth mental health services in alignment with Tasmania’s youth mental health reform program which was developed in response to the CAMHS review.
This will include identifying and addressing gaps in screening, building on existing infrastructure to enhance digital capture and reporting of screening data from public antenatal and postnatal care settings, and working towards providing nationally consistent data to the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare.
The three programs will be integrated within the stepped system of care for eating disorder services in Tasmania and ensuring Tasmania’s residential eating disorder centre is completed through the Community Health and Hospitals Program Agreement.
These services will support individuals discharged from an emergency department after a suicide attempt or suicidal crisis, in the community, for up to three months, in line with the Beyond Blue Way Back Support Service.
This will support consistent intake, referral and integration across all mental health care and clinical services in Tasmania, as well as general practice. This work will include reviewing Tasmanian Health Pathways against the IAR levels of care and establishing new referral pathways as appropriate.
This Central Intake and Referral Service (CIRS) will be staffed by therapeutic professionals who will offer compassionate and consistent triage using the Initial Assessment and Referral tool, supporting referrals to the most appropriate local services.
The CIRS will make it easier to navigate across the service system to access the right care in the right place at the right time. It will integrate with Tasmania’s existing state-based systems.
