Level 5 - Acute and Specialist Community Mental Health Services
Definition
Specialist mental healthcare usually includes intensive team-based specialist assessment and service (typically state/territory mental health services) with involvement from a range of different mental health professionals, including case managers, psychiatrists, social workers, occupational therapists, psychologists and drug and alcohol workers. This level also often includes more intensive care provided by GPs working with acute and specialist teams.
Care environment
Ideally, Level 5 services are delivered in the community with outreach to the person within their home or another environment. This level may also involve specialist mental health inpatient and outpatient care within a hospital environment, community-based intermediate care, sub-acute unit, or crisis respite centre.
Core mental health treatment/intervention services
For this level of care, the person will likely benefit from psychiatric assessment and care, specialist behavioural programs, crisis management, and therapeutic services using pro-active engagement strategies provided by a multi-disciplinary specialist team with outreach capability.
Other health services that may be required
A comprehensive physical health assessment and ongoing integrated management of physical health issues via a GP may also be required.
Support services
Additional services are likely to be needed and may include:
Specific community, social, leisure, and recreational supports aimed at addressing factors that may be contributing to the onset or maintenance of the persons mental health symptoms or distress or that the person may experience difficulty with due to their mental health, such services to help people manage daily activities, rebuild, and maintain connections, build social skills and participate in education and employment.
Accommodations and supports to minimise impacts of mental health symptoms and psychological distress on functioning and/or to reduce impacts of stressors that may exacerbate symptoms or distress, including supports or accommodations at school or work.
Supports targeting situational stressors, such as housing, legal support, financial support, relationship counselling, parental/family focused education and support, and support for grief and loss.
Formal and informal individual and group peer support for the person or their parent/caregiver (including online peer support forums and chats).
Services and support focussed on connections with community and culture.
Care coordination services, service navigation, and advocacy.
Referral criteria
A person requiring this level of care usually has severe or very severe mental health symptoms, with associated behaviours that are likely to present an imminent or unpredictable danger to self or others and severe problems in functioning across multiple or most everyday roles (work, education, parenting, volunteering), or is experiencing:
Very significant concerns about suicide, self-harm, or engagement in high-risk behaviours or activities.
Very significant concerns about harm to others.
Extremely compromised self-care ability to the extent that there is a real and present danger of the person experiencing harm related to these deficits.