Purpose statement for the Primary Mental Health Care Minimum Data Set

The purpose of the Primary Mental Health Care Minimum Data Set (PMHC MDS) is to provide comparable, meaningful national and regional data that supports safe, equitable and nationally consistent delivery of primary mental health care. The PMHC MDS aims to strengthen quality oversight, inform service planning, delivery, evaluation and policy development, support effective system stewardship, and drive improved mental health consumer-centred outcomes. Its purpose is to meet the following objectives.

Community objectives

At the community level, the PMHC MDS aims to:

• Provide a robust evidence base for Primary Health Networks (PHNs) to monitor service delivery by commissioned organisations across key performance domains, inform judgements about mental health consumer - centred outcomes and value for money, and support effective local program evaluation.
• Enable community needs analysis and planning by contributing data that supports the identification of service coverage, gaps, priorities and inequities. This includes access for rural and regional communities and priority populations such as First Nations peoples, lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, intersex, queer, asexual and other diverse sexual orientations, sex characteristics and gender identities, culturally and racially marginalised groups, younger and older people, and people with high support and/or co-occurring needs.
• Provide meaningful data for benchmarking both within and across regions to support improvement in service quality and mental health consumer outcomes at the local level.
• Inform communication with community-level stakeholders, including the broader community, through appropriate reporting based on information that is comparable to other regions.

National objectives

At the national and state/territory levels, the PMHC MDS aims to:

• Provide the basis for national quality oversight and ongoing improvement in the way primary mental health care models and reforms are being implemented, and whether they meet core requirements expected.
• Serve as a foundation for accountability arrangements with PHNs, including shared accountability with state and territory mental health services, and inform regular review and updating of annual activity work plans.
• Provide an evidence base for evaluating mental health reforms and supporting broader research and evaluation across mental health and other sectors, including enabling future data integration where appropriate, to drive improved outcomes for mental health consumers
• Enable ongoing national planning for primary mental health care by providing data to inform demand forecasting, workforce planning, including the lived experience peer workforce, and evidence-informed policy development.
• Support appropriate public reporting that informs mental health consumers and the Australian community about service activity and outcomes achieved.