Mental illness

The Chief Psychiatrist is an independent statutory officer with powers and responsibilities to uphold quality and safety in Victoria’s mental health and wellbeing system.

Following the recommendations of the Royal Commission into Victoria’s Mental Health System, the MHWA redefined the role of the Chief Psychiatrist, broadening their jurisdiction to additional settings and practices of clinical mental health such as to oversee mental health and wellbeing services in custodial settings and to regulate chemical restraint.

These changes build a governance architecture placing consumers at the centre and supporting the mental health and wellbeing workforce to deliver safe and high-quality treatment and care. Mental health and wellbeing services who fail to comply with the MWHA must report these failures to the Chief Psychiatrist.

The Chief Psychiatrist also produces guidelines containing specialist information and advice on clinical practice in mental health and wellbeing services.

The Chief Psychiatrist’s role under the MHWAis to provide clinical leadership and expert clinical advice to mental health and wellbeing service providers in Victoria; to promote the highest standard of clinical practices and care by clinical mental health service providers; to promote the rights of people receiving mental health and wellbeing services; and to provide advice to the Minister and the Health Secretary of the Victorian Government Department of Health (‘Department of Health (Vic)’) about the provision of such mental health and wellbeing services (s 266).

The chief psychiatrist has a range of functions under section 121 of the MHWA, including developing and publishing standards, guidelines and practice directions for the provision of mental health and wellbeing services and assisting mental health and wellbeing service providers to comply with these and develop and maintain clinical governance frameworks to improve the quality and safety of those services; providing clinical leadership, clinical reviews, analysing data, undertaking research and publishing information about mental health and wellbeing services, including in the annual report. Although it does not have a complaints function, the Chief Psychiatrist can, under section 267 of the MHWA, conduct an investigation of services provided by clinical mental health service providers, give directions to those providers in respect of the provision of services and promote cooperation and coordination between clinical service providers and providers of health, disability and community support services.

The MHWA also requires mental health and wellbeing service providers to report to the Chief Psychiatrist the use of restrictive interventions on mental health wards (s 138), the performance of neurosurgery (s 123), and reportable deaths (s 741).