This is Schedule 1 — Charter of Mental Health Care Principles in the .
[s. 11, 12, 320(2)(f), 333(3)(d) and 351(1)(b)]
Purpose
- The Charter of Mental Health Care Principles is a rights-based set of principles that mental health services must make every effort to comply with in providing treatment, care and support to people experiencing mental illness.
- The Charter is intended to influence the interconnected factors that facilitate recovery from mental illness.
Charter Principles
Show morePrinciple 1: Attitude towards people experiencing mental illness
A mental health service must treat people experiencing mental illness with dignity, equality, courtesy and compassion and must not discriminate against or stigmatise them.
Principle 2: Human rights
A mental health service must protect and uphold the fundamental human rights of people experiencing mental illness and act in accordance with the
national and international standards that apply to mental health services.
Principle 3: Person-centred approach
- A mental health service must uphold a person-centred focus with a view to obtaining the best possible outcomes for people experiencing mental illness, including by recognising life experiences, needs, preferences, aspirations, values and skills, while delivering goal-oriented treatment, care and support.
- A mental health service must promote positive and encouraging recovery focused attitudes towards mental illness, including that people can and do recover, lead full and productive lives and make meaningful contributions to the community.
Principle 4: Delivery of treatment, care and support
A mental health service must be easily accessible and safe and provide people experiencing mental illness with timely treatment, care and support of high quality based on contemporary best practice to promote recovery in the least restrictive manner that is consistent with their needs.
Principle 5: Choice and self-determination
A mental health service must involve people in decision-making and encourage self-determination, cooperation and choice, including by recognising people’s capacity to make their own decisions.
Principle 6: Diversity
A mental health service must recognise, and be sensitive and responsive to, diverse individual circumstances, including those relating to gender, sexuality, age, family, disability, lifestyle choices and cultural and spiritual beliefs and practices.
Principle 7: People of Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander descent
A mental health service must provide treatment and care to people of Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander descent that is appropriate to, and consistent with, their cultural and spiritual beliefs and practices and having regard to the views of their families and, to the extent that it is practicable and appropriate to do so, the views of significant members of their communities, including elders and traditional healers, and Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander mental health workers.
Principle 8: Co-occurring needs
A mental health service must address physical, medical and dental health needs of people experiencing mental illness and other co-occurring health
issues, including physical and intellectual disability and alcohol and other drug problems.
Principle 9: Factors influencing mental health and wellbeing
A mental health service must recognise the range of circumstances, both positive and negative, that influence mental health and wellbeing, including
relationships, accommodation, recreation, education, financial circumstances and employment.
Principle 10: Privacy and confidentiality
A mental health service must respect and maintain privacy and confidentiality.
Principle 11: Responsibilities and dependants
A mental health service must acknowledge the responsibilities and commitments of people experiencing mental illness, particularly the needs of their children and other dependants.
Principle 12: Provision of information about mental illness and treatment
A mental health service must provide, and clearly explain, information about the nature of the mental illness and about treatment (including any risks, side effects and alternatives) to people experiencing mental illness in a way that will help them to understand and to express views or make decisions.
Principle 13: Provision of information about rights
A mental health service must provide, and clearly explain, information about legal rights, including those relating to representation, advocacy, complaints procedures, services and access to personal information, in a way that will help people experiencing mental illness to understand, obtain assistance and uphold their rights.
Principle 14: Involvement of other people
A mental health service must take a collaborative approach to decision making, including respecting and facilitating the right of people experiencing
mental illness to involve their family members, carers and other personal support persons in planning, undertaking, evaluating and improving their treatment, care and support.
Principle 15: Accountability and improvement
A mental health service must be accountable, committed to continuous improvement and open to solving problems in partnership with all people
involved in the treatment, care and support of people experiencing mental illness, including their family members, carers and other personal and professional support persons.
