Tasmania’s first ever tri-agency mental health response service has reached a significant milestone as it continues to support the mental health and wellbeing of Tasmanians and ensure they receive the right care, in the right place, at the right time.
The Police, Ambulance and Clinician Early Response (PACER) team has been operational since January this year and is comprised of mental health clinicians, police officers and paramedics who attend mental health-specific triple-0 calls and provide a rapid response to acute mental health concerns in the community.
The objectives of PACER are to provide people in mental health distress with:
- access to timely and appropriate mental health care in the community;
- a dignified, respectful, least restrictive, and compassionate response that enables them, where possible, to remain at home and avoid preventable mental health presentations to the Emergency Department; and
- links to community-based mental health supports where appropriate.
PACER is also a great example of promoting interagency cooperation, collaboration and communication.
To date, PACER has assisted more than 1,000 Tasmanians with a number of conditions ranging from suicidal ideation, psychosis, depression, anxiety, and confusion/incoherence. Welfare checks were also conducted, and the service has been very well received with positive feedback from consumers, families, friends, and stakeholders.
Importantly, almost 800 people – nearly 80 per cent of the individuals seen by PACER during this time – have been supported to remain in the community.
This has led to a reduction of approximately 45 fewer mental health-related presentations to the Emergency Department of the Royal Hobart Hospital each month.
For those who have required attendance at the Emergency Department, there has been a linked reduction in the number of patients being managed under the Mental Health Act or involuntarily admitted. This is a great outcome for both the individuals involved and RHH staff more broadly.
Being a tri-agency service, the PACER team has also had the opportunity to support their Ambulance Tasmania and Tasmania Police colleagues in the field by providing specialist phone consults to others attending mental health call outs.
Based on its early success, the Tasmanian Liberal Government has committed permanent funding to PACER, including a commitment to trial a mental health emergency response model in the North West in the first quarter of 2023, as we move toward the goal of a state-wide service.
I look forward to both the continuation of the service in the South and the introduction of the service in the North West as key components of the ongoing state-wide Tasmanian Mental Health Reform Program.
I thank everyone involved in the PACER team for their commitment and dedication to providing compassionate, high-quality mental health care for Tasmanians
