SINGAPORE – Acute psychiatry services will be expanded across all healthcare clusters to meet increasing demand, so that more patients will have greater access to help when they urgently need it.<\/p>\n
Dr Koh Poh Koon, Senior Minister of State for Health, announced this in a speech at the Singapore Mental Health Conference at Singapore Expo on July 16. <\/p>\n
Mental health services within acute hospitals remain an important and significant touchpoint for individuals with acute mental health needs requiring specialist care and for those in crisis, he said.<\/p>\n
Acute psychiatry services include inpatient and outpatient services.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Currently, inpatient psychiatric care in Singapore is available at six out of 11 public hospitals. These are the Institute of Mental Health (IMH), Tan Tock Seng Hospital, National University Hospital, Changi General Hospital, Singapore General Hospital and Sengkang Hospital.<\/p>\n
Outpatient specialist mental health services are available at IMH and all acute hospitals.<\/p>\n
A practice guide for Singapore\u2019s tiered care model for mental health was also launched at the conference. Available on the MOH website, it aims to standardise assessment methods and referral procedures across service providers based on the intensity and stability of clients\u2019 symptoms, and the types of care required. <\/p>\n
For example, a Community Outreach Team (Crest) \u2013 a Tier 2 service under the national strategy \u2013 may refer a distressed individual with moderate mental health needs to a Community Intervention Team (Comit), which is a Tier 3 service, if a standardised assessment tool has determined that the client requires further diagnosis and\/or psychosocial intervention, explained Dr Koh.<\/p>\n
The guide was jointly developed by the Ministry of Health (MOH), Ministry of Social and Family Development, and Agency for Integrated Care (AIC), with input from numerous stakeholders.<\/p>\n
With the practice guide, there will be greater consistency in how service providers deliver care and help their clients navigate the mental health ecosystem. <\/p>\n
To begin with, the practice guide focuses on the management of depression, anxiety and suicidality, and may be expanded to cover other less common mental health conditions in the future, he said.<\/p>\n
In addition, MOH will roll out a pocket guide for people to more easily identify the types of mental health support and services available. More details will be provided at a later date, Dr Koh said.<\/p>\n
The eighth edition of Singapore Mental Health Conference runs from July 16 to 17, with a heavy focus on digital mental health and artificial intelligence. It is jointly organised by IMH, National Council of Social Service, AIC, and the Health Promotion Board.<\/p>\n
Mental healthIMH\/Institute of Mental HealthMinistry of HealthKoh Poh Koon<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"SINGAPORE – Acute psychiatry services will be expanded across all healthcare clusters to meet increasing demand, so that…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":272,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[49,48,84,393,394],"class_list":{"0":"post-271","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mental-health","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-health","11":"tag-mental-health","12":"tag-mentalhealth"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/271","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=271"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/271\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/272"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=271"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=271"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=271"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}