Mental health capacity in public hospitals
Unfortunately, there is no data available for 2021–22.
While the ACT remains poor in sharing of up-to-date data, investment in mental health beds over the past decade has translated to a much-needed increase in per-person mental health capacity.
Figure 1: Total number of specialised mental health public hospital beds
Figure 2: Specialised mental health public hospital beds per 100,000 population
Mental health presentations to ED
The number of per-person mental health-related presentations has been falling for the past six years in the ACT, from 106 in 2015–16 to 98 in 2022–23. The share of patients being triaged with urgent, semi-urgent and emergency conditions has also remained relatively steady over the past five years.
Figure 3: Rate of ED mental health presentations per 10,000 population
Figure 4: Mental health-related ED presentations, by triage category, per cent
Length of stay
This page demonstrates the length of stay for mental health patients across two areas of the public hospital — the emergency department and inpatient beds once admitted to hospital.
The ACT is the only jurisdiction to not see major increases in time spent in the emergency department prior to being admitted to hospital. This is very likely due to the major investment in mental health public hospital capacity seen over the past decade, with a 50 per cent increase from 18 mental health beds per 100,000 in 2015–16 to 29 in 2020–21.
Figure 5: Length of stay in ED
Figure 6: Overnight admitted care length of stay (days)
Clinical outcomes/community follow-up
The ACT has incomplete data for many performance indicators, including the graphs included in this section. For this reason, the section will be left blank.