Skip to main content

About the PMHC-MDS

Funding by the Australian Government Department of Health has been provided to Primary Health Networks (PHNs) through a Primary Mental Health Care flexible funding pool to support commissioning of mental health and suicide prevention services in six key service delivery areas:

  • low intensity psychological interventions for people with, or at risk of, mild mental illness;
  • psychological therapies delivered by mental health professionals to under serviced groups;
  • early intervention services for children and young people with, or at risk of mental illness;
  • services for people with severe and complex mental illness who are being managed in a primary care setting;
  • enhanced Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander mental health services; and
  • a regional approach to suicide prevention activities with a focus on improved follow-up for people who have attempted suicide or are at high risk of suicide.

The Primary Mental Health Care Minimum Data Set (PMHC MDS) will provide the basis for PHNs and the Department of Health to monitor and report on the quantity and quality of service delivery, and to inform future improvements in the planning and funding of primary mental health care services funded by the Australian Government.

The data reported by PHNs through the PMHC MDS will form the basis for production of key performance indicators used to monitor services delivered across the 31 PHN regions covered by PHNs.

Logicly has been contracted by the Department of Health to manage the PMHC MDS on its behalf.

A specification of the data items to be collected in the PMHC MDS is available.

If you would like to be notified about updates to this specification or announcements about the rollout of the PMHC MDS please subscribe to the PMHC MDS mailing list by sending an email to support@pmhc-mds.com with the subject “subscribe news@lists.pmhc-mds.com”. This is not a general discussion list. Only moderated users can send messages to this list.

Information about how to get started on the PMHC MDS is available and will be regularly updated.

Announcements

Latest

Update to the PMHC MDS - 10/6/2026 (v3.3.0)

PMHC MDS Update v3.3.0

We are pleased to announce that PMHC MDS Update v3.3.0 was released on June 10, 2026.

The following updates have been applied in the reporting interface:

  • The following reports have been updated to allow grouping down to site level:
    • M1 — Client wait time
    • M2 — Activity Reports by Age group
    • M3 — Activity Reports by Gender
    • M4 — Activity Reports by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander status
    • M5 — IAR-DST - Recommended Level of Care
    • M6 — IAR-DST - Recommended Level of Care, where intake referred to MMHC
    • M9 — Activity Report: Service contact type
    • M10 — Activity Report: Service contact duration
  • The M1 has also been redefined to calculate client wait time as the number of days between referral date as recorded on the episode record and the date of the first contact, whether attended or not. The documentation has been updated to reflect this.
  • The following reports have temporarily been taken offline. They are also being updated to allow grouping down to site level and will be released shortly.
    • M7 — Monthly service activity
    • M8 — Episode of care characteristics
  • The W1 report has been updated so that the Safety Plan and Support Plan KPIs are more compatible with other indicators. Since its introduction as part of The Way Back trial, these KPIs have been based on the number of Safety and Support Plans recorded (that is, ‘collection occasions’). On review, it has been determined that a more appropriate basis for these KPIs is the number of episodes that include at least one Safety or Support Plan. The presence of at least one Safety or Support Plan within an episode is sufficient to meet the KPI.

The following updates have been applied in the user management interface:

  • Fixed a bug stopping users with the user management role from seeing the user audit table.

The user guides have been updated to reflect these updates. They are available at https://docs.pmhc-mds.com/.

Previous

Update to the PMHC MDS - 15/5/2026 (v3.2.5) May 15, 2026

Reminder of the End of Life for PMHC MDS Version 4.1 Data Specification and The Way Back Version 3.0 Data Specifications May 11, 2026

Update to the PMHC MDS - 8/5/2026 (v3.2.4) May 08, 2026

View Archive