🏥 Provision of Voluntary Inpatient Mental Health Services from the Private Sector

WA Health awarded a $6.57M contract to private hospitals for voluntary inpatient mental health services to address bed shortages and reduce patient wait times.

Among other clinical services, SMHS provides a comprehensive range of public mental health services through its community mental health services, hospitals, and community health centres. Multiple SMHS hospital sites, including Fiona Stanley, Fremantle and Rockingham General Hospitals, provide inpatient mental health services. Current presentations to SMHS sites indicate there are on average 15 patients per day waiting for a mental health inpatient bed. The current deficit of inpatient mental health beds represents a risk to patients with mental illness who reside in the SMHS community. The Head Agreement will engage providers of supplementary voluntary mental health inpatient services with the view to improving the time waiting for specialist care in the appropriate setting. The primary objective is to reduce risk of patient deterioration.

The South Metropolitan Health Service awarded an estimated $6,570,000 contract via Restricted Tender to Abbotsford Private Hospital (Healthecare Abbotsford Hospital Pty Ltd) and Healthecare Marian Centre (Healthecare Marian Centre Pty Ltd).