Status: In progress
What the Royal Commission said
The Royal Commission recommended the Victorian Government:
- Act immediately to ensure compulsory treatment is used only as a last resort.
- Set targets to reduce the use and duration of compulsory treatment on a year-by-year basis.
- Set expectations when commissioning mental health and wellbeing services to provide non-coercive options for people living with mental illness or psychological distress.
- Ensure the Mental Health Improvement Unit within Safer Care Victoria works with services to ensure compulsory treatment is used as a last resort.
What are the opportunities?
The Royal Commission identified opportunities to improve the quality and safety of mental health and wellbeing services.
This includes measures to reduce compulsory treatment and promote and protect human rights.
What we've achieved
- All mental health services have a shared understanding of the Mental Health and Wellbeing Act 2022 and the use of compulsory treatment as a last resort as written into the law.
- Independent Mental Health Advocacy and the Office of the Chief Psychiatrist have partnered to run a series of workshops across the sector on the principles of the Mental Health and Wellbeing Act 2022, as it pertains to psychiatric practice delivered to medical practitioners across the state.
- The Office of the Chief Psychiatrist has a dashboard to monitor the use of compulsory treatment and identify any variabilities in practice across the sector.
Reducing Compulsory Treatment initiative
- Safer Care Victoria's Mental Health Improvement Program continues to lead statewide efforts to reduce the use and duration of compulsory treatment and strengthen supported decision‑making across Victoria's mental health system.
- To date, we have completed phase one of the Reducing Compulsory Treatment initiative, delivered with six metropolitan and regional adult community mental health and wellbeing services.
- Phase one focused on building early evidence, capability and cultural foundations for reducing compulsory treatment, while improving consumer voice, preferences and participation in treatment planning.
Key achievements from phase one
- Strengthened supported decision‑making: Participating services achieved a 59 per cent relative increase in the use of advance statement of preferences among consumers on Community Treatment Orders (CTOs), supported by new tools, capability building and lived experience leadership.
- Improved cultural and workforce capability: Services reported more reflective, consumer‑centred conversations about risk, rights and care planning, supported by workshops, coaching, learning sessions and embedded lived experience roles.
- Earlier signs of impact in some services: One service demonstrated a 22 per cent sustained reduction in compulsory treatment, linked to strengthened governance, improved visibility of practice patterns and rapid data‑driven reflection.
- Enhanced data visibility: Routine access to monthly statewide compulsory treatment data was established, improving transparency, enabling reflection, and helping teams identify variation and opportunities for improvement.
- Safer transitions of care: No unintended consequences were identified. Consumers did not experience increased compulsory assessment following CTO revocation and continued to remain engaged with services.
What's next?
- The Office of the Chief Psychiatrist led a clinical forum in August 2026 with attendees from across all designated mental health service providers on the use of the Mental Health and Wellbeing Act 2022.
Reducing Compulsory Treatment initiative
- Phase one laid strong early foundations in culture, capability, supported decision‑making and governance. It confirmed that meaningful reductions in compulsory treatment require:
- strong medical leadership engagement
- consistent lived and living experience involvement
- clearer, simpler data feedback loops
- practical tools to support everyday application of the Mental Health and Wellbeing Act 2022
- These learnings guide the focus on strengthening structural enablers, embedding supported decision‑making more deeply, expanding the work across key service touchpoints, and building the conditions necessary for measurable, sustained reductions in compulsory treatment across Victoria.
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