Mental Health Working Group

The primary role of the Mental Health Working Group (MHWG) is to promote strategic leadership on mental health in emergency care through providing advice and direction on:  

• the development of ACEM’s Mental Health Strategy and Mental Health Action Plans for both Australia and Aotearoa New Zealand; and
• the implementation of ACEM’s strategies, projects and other ACEM initiatives in mental health emergency care that are already underway.   

ACEM’s Strategy and Action Plans will build on our previous advocacy, which has highlighted failures in the mental health system, the resulting delays in providing timely and appropriate care to people presenting  to the emergency department in mental health crisis, and the impact of access block and overcrowding on safety for patients and staff in emergency departments.   
 
The Strategy and Action Plans will reference policy commitments and recommendations captured in:

• the Australian Mental Health Summit Communiqué, ACEM/RANZCP Mental Health in the Emergency Department Consensus Statement and the ACEM-commissioned report Nowhere Else to Go; and 
• the Communiqué from the Aotearoa New Zealand Mental Health in the Emergency Department Summit. 

Members