Staff News

Mental Health
Staff Update

The 10th annual Metro North Staff Excellence Awards were held on Friday night and it was great to hear (I was on leave) of such a great turn out from Metro North Mental Health (MNMH) staff.

My favourite part of backfilling Dr Turner’s role is not the endless stream of meetings. I do however enjoy the opportunity to meet different teams and learn more about the challenges and opportunities you face each day.

The 2024 R U OK? Day theme is – “Ask R U OK Any Day” encouraging us to have authentic, supportive conversations every day of the year.

It is with great pleasure that I announce Penny Dale as Metro North Mental Health’s (MNMH) inauguralDirector of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Health.

I would firstly like to thank you everyone who has been working to accommodate the extra demands thatare being placed on our services. Please take care of yourselves during this time.

Thank you to everyone who has welcomed me into the Acting Executive Director role for the next fewweeks, until Dr Kathryn Turner’s return on Wednesday 3 July 2024.

As you may have seen in recent media coverage, Metro North Health Chief Executive Jackie Hansonhas commissioned a review into the TPCH adult mental health inpatient unit to look at possible improvements to the way we provide care to vulnerable patients.

It is an exciting month for the RBWH Community Mental Health Services as we prepare to move to our newpremises at 121 Wharf St, Spring Hill. The Spring Hill Community Mental Health Centre (SHCMHS) willbring together our multidisciplinary team of 180 staff to provide our consumers with mental health care froma modern environment, in one space.

We have a lot of interesting activities to share across the service in this week’s update that celebrates oursupport networks and diverse cultures. We also highlight some important work happening to support thecare of people with depression.

Six months to go! Works are on track to complete our new Crisis Stabilisation Facility (CSF) at TPCH by theend of August 2024.

Six months to go!Works are on track to comlete our new Crisis Stabilisation Facility at TPCH

It has been a busy start to the year in many ways. In addition to continuing to provide clinical activity wecontinue to build our service to respond to increased needs. Work continues on embedding our newRapid Response and Intervention CNCs in three of our Emergency Departments and increasing staffingin the Psychiatric Emergency Centre and working with the team to develop an updated model of service.

As the year draws to a close it is a good opportunity to reflect on some wonderful achievements acrossthe year in terms of improving clinical services and outcomes for our mental health and drug and alcoholservices, research, our lived experience workforce and the development of our commitment to buildingstronger connections with community through our Indigenous Mental Health Workforce.

In October 2023, the MNMH Executive Team hosted the inauguralmiddle leader’s forum with over 80 leaders from across Metro North Mental Health coming together toconnect, collaborate and plan for 2024 and beyond.

During Mental Health Week (7-15 October 2023), Metro North Health launched a campaign aimed at reducing stigma connected to mental illness and harm from drug and alcohol use.

All services across Metro North are participating in an ongoing Shatter the Stigma campaign that will belaunched service-wide during Mental Health Week, 7 – 15th October 2023 .

We have recently learnt more about the research initiatives and innovative enhancements to theconsumer experience occurring within The Prince Charles, Metro North Mental Health facility which Iwould like to share with you.

“Creating hope through action” is the call to action for World Suicide Day, 10 September 2023. Suicide isa global health problem with an average 65,000 attempts per year in Australia. By joining together, wecan start conversations, encourage understanding and change the narrative around suicide through thepromotion of compassion, awareness and lived experience.

Recently the Queensland Eating Disorder Service (QuEDS) shared a good new story on how the teamare working closely with consumer groups to overcome barriers around adequate dietary intake whichdemonstrates the values of compassion and innovation.

Our vision for Metro North Mental Health and our Alcohol and Other Drug Services is the promotion of continuous service improvement and the development and translation of innovation andbest practice. Research, evaluation, and quality improvement activities are central to this vision.

July provides us all with the opportunity to pause for a moment, refocus, and consider our priorities forthe second half of the year. A challenge staff frequently describe is the constant influx of emails whichcan hinder our productivity, take time away from clinical care and cause unnecessary stress.

Monday 5 June was the ‘Go Live’ date for the ASPIRES Pathway for Prevention of Suicide, Self-Harmand Overdose.

It has been wonderful to continue to see all of the innovations and excellent work occurring across ourservice. At the most recent MNMH Staff Forum we heard about the important work of Safewards occurring across all of our service (MNMH-Red-Cab; TPCH, RBWH).

We know that when people hold prejudiced beliefs about those who experience mental health andalcohol and other drug issues, it leads to unconscious bias and subtle discriminatory behaviours whichcan cause unintended harm in healthcare.

Recently the Mental Health Peer Responders came together for a professional development andplanning day, and I had the pleasure of meeting with them in the afternoon.