Ambulance Victoria plan finds right aid for mental health patients
A radical trial is helping provide better care for mental health patients and freeing up valuable ambulance resources.
Victoria
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The number of mental health patients taken to emergency departments has been radically cut in an effort to better care for the vulnerable and free up health resources.
Although paramedics take almost 50,000 mental health patients to Victorian hospital emergency departments each year, half are discharged within four hours without having received treatment or plans for follow-up care.
Amid concerns the reliance on emergency departments is adding to the trauma for many people, Ambulance Victoria has begun diverting mental health patients to community support services, GPs and hospital outreach programs.
In its first six months its Teleprompt trial has seen the rates of mental health hospitalisation reversed - with paramedics now taking just 28 per cent of their mental health patients under the program to hospital, down from the usual 80 per cent.
In line with recommendations from the Royal Commission into Victoria’s Mental Health, the system sees Eastern Health mental health clinicians embedded in the Ambulance Victoria call centre to provide assessment and advice to paramedics and their patients at the scene.
With 75,000 calls for mental health assistance made each year, Ambulance Victoria’s director of operational triage services Lindsay Mackay said the need to better support patients and paramedics would make a huge difference to lives and resources.
“At the end of the day if you call triple-0 and you need to go to hospital, you will go to hospital,” Ms McKay said.
“What we are trying to do is get to that middle ground, where people need crisis support and we are trying to support them better.”
Half way through the 12-month pilot, Teleprompt has seen paramedics call on the mental health triage service during 1200 call-outs, with specialists able to find options better suited to 72 per cent of patients than taking them to emergency departments.
Unlike paramedics, the Eastern Health specialists have access to a statewide database of health records, which can be used to connect patients with their care plans or services more suited to their immediate crisis.
Eastern Health's associate program director for mental health Patrick Mccrohan said all patients diverted under the program had received follow-up care, with 80-90 per cent reporting it as either good or very good.
“ED is not a therapeutic place for the ongoing care of anybody suffering trauma or any kind of distress,” Mr Mccrohan said.
After experiencing horror situations where her own mental health episodes were worsened by being taken to crowded emergency departments, Brittney McVeagh is hopeful the trial will be rolled out into wider use.
“The statistics speak for themselves. Hospital is the last resort and it should always be the last resort,” she said.
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