Recommendation 22

What the Royal Commission said

The Royal Commission recommends that the Victorian Government:

1. establish a responsive and integrated mental health and wellbeing service stream for older Victorians, that focuses on improving their mental health and wellbeing outcomes.
2. ensure older Victorians have access to the same mental health treatment, care and support as the rest of the adult population.
3. establish older adult mental health and wellbeing specialist multidisciplinary teams in Adult and Older Adult Area Mental Health and Wellbeing Services (refer to Recommendation 3(2)(b)), to:
   a. provide specialist mental health treatment, care and support for people with complex and compounding mental health needs generally related to ageing; and
   b. assist primary and secondary care and related services that support older Victorians, including aged care, through primary consultation, secondary consultation and shared care.

What are we doing?

As a first step towards the implementation of Recommendation 22, we commissioned an evaluation of the Intensive Community Treatment (ICT) program. This is the main community-based model of care for older adults experiencing acute mental health challenges.

The ICT program provides older adults (aged 65 years and older) experiencing acute mental illness an alternative to hospitalisation, such as community or home-based treatment.

ICT teams are multidisciplinary and embedded within Older Adult Mental Health (OAMH) community teams. They have strong links with inpatient units and residential care.

The ICT program has been operating for twenty years and shares key features with the reformed mental health and wellbeing system for older adults envisaged by the Royal Commission. These include multidisciplinary teams delivering specialist and age-appropriate care; the need for more intensive mental health and wellbeing services; and provision of care in home or in the community.

The key evaluation findings will help inform future reforms to support the mental health and wellbeing of adults and older adults.

The department will continue to work collaboratively with Area Mental Health and Wellbeing Services and people with lived and living experience as we undertake reforms to the older adult mental health and wellbeing work stream and the design and delivery of home-based care programs.