Reporting critical incidents and non-compliance with the Mental Health Act 2016

Chief Psychiatrist policy

This page includes information about the following Chief Psychiatrist policy.

This policy is mandatory for all authorised mental health services (AMHSs). An authorised doctor, authorised mental health practitioner, AMHS administrator, or other person performing a function or exercising a power under the Mental Health Act 2016 must comply with this policy.

You can also find additional fact sheets, forms and resources that are available for this policy under the relevant subtopics on this page.

Introduction

The Chief Psychiatrist is responsible for facilitating the proper administration of the Mental Health Act 2016 and monitoring and auditing compliance with the Act.

Authorised mental health service (AMHS) administrators must notify the Chief Psychiatrist of certain incidents involving patients of the service. This includes critical incidents and incidents involving significant non-compliance or suspected non-compliance with the Act.

The Chief Psychiatrist reviews notifications with a view to identifying and addressing systemic issues to strengthen and improve the delivery of high quality and safe care.

Read the Notification to Chief Psychiatrist of critical incidents and non-compliance policy to learn more.

Critical incidents

Critical incidents are clinical incidents that require mandatory reporting under existing legislation. This includes:

• the death, or injury resulting in likely permanent harm, of a person receiving treatment or care for a mental illness in an AMHS
• the death, or injury resulting in likely permanent harm, of a person who, within thirty (30) days preceding their death, received treatment or care for a mental illness as a patient of an AMHS, if the AMHS becomes aware of the person’s death or injury.

Additional clinical incidents to be notified include:

• an incident resulting in significant mental or physical harm to an inpatient
• allegations of sexual assault or sexual safety incidents resulting in significant mental or physical harm involving an inpatient
• a serious adverse clinical incident such as the incorrect administration of medication to a patient which could have resulted in serious harm.

Additional incidents outside of existing legislative reporting requirements:

• any incident (clinical or non-clinical) affecting the health, safety or well-being of a patient or another person which could attract public attention or adversely affect the organisational reputation of the AMHS.

Significant and suspected non-compliance with the Act

Significant non-compliance means:

• detention of a person other than in accordance with the Act
• provision of a regulated treatment such as electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) other than in accordance with the Act
• the use of seclusion, mechanical restraint, physical restraint or administration of medications other than in accordance with the Act
• a breach of any offence provision of the Act such as ill-treatment of patients, contravention of the confidentiality obligations, assisting a patient to unlawfully absent themselves, giving false or misleading information to an official, and obstructing of an official.

Suspected non-compliance means a matter involving possible non-compliance which has yet to be determined as non-compliance with the Act and may require formal investigation at service level or by the Chief Psychiatrist.