In order for the Chief Psychiatrist to be able to monitor standards of psychiatric care he needs to gather information about how mental health services operate.

There are a number of ways that this is achieved:

• Clinical Governance Reviews of Mental Health Services.
• Monitoring of Licensed Psychiatric Hostels.
• Special Circumstance Review (or ‘targeted' reviews).
• Analysis of the types of complaints received directly by the Chief Psychiatrist and his office.
• Review of complaint data collated by the Office of Safety and Quality, Department of Health (*RESPOND Reports).
• Review of #AIMS Reports.
• Reviewing the recommendations of the State Coroner and monitoring compliance with implementation.
• Reviewing the circumstances of Unexpected Deaths of mental health patients and serious incidents reported to the Chief Psychiatrist.
• Information from informal meetings with Government and non-Government agencies, consumers, carer and advocates.

* RESPOND Refer to the The Department of Health Care Complaints Policy (link to resources and publications).

# The Australian Incident Monitoring System (AIMS) was developed by the Australian Patient Safety Foundation in 1996 to provide a mechanism for reporting any incidents or accidents in the health care system by using a single standard incident report form. This information can then be recorded using the AIMS software and a range of reports can be generated to indicate problem areas.