Monitoring & performance Data

Mental health activity monitoring provides insight into service usage and outcomes across regions to assess system performance. Performance indicators and regional profiles help identify trends, disparities, and areas for improvement, supporting data-driven planning and policy decisions.

Mental health services activity monitoring: quarterly data

Reporting on mental health service activity offers early insights into how Australia’s mental health system delivers care and adapts to unexpected changes in population needs, including events like the COVID-19 pandemic and natural disasters.

Regional profiles of mental health service activity

Integrated regional profiles present data on the use of a range of mental health services by people across more than 300 geographic regions (Statistical Area 3) in Australia. The profiles can be used to explore and compare trends in service use over time for various regions and age groups.

Performance indicators

A number of different mental health indicator sets have been developed over time to measure the performance and progress in the delivery of services across the mental health sector. 

Key Performance Indicators of Australian Public Mental Health Services

The Key Performance Indicators for Australian Public Mental Health Services (KPI’s) were developed to improve the accountability and transparency and act as a guide to inform decision making.

National Healthcare Agreement

The National Healthcare Agreement (NHA) indicators provide an integrated approach to improving health outcomes for Australians and the sustainability of the health system.

The AIHW’s Suicide and self-harm monitoring system provides further analysis of the impact of the pandemic on psychological distress and deaths by suicide. While there has been a rise in the use of mental health services and an increase in psychological distress during the pandemic, there is no evidence that suspected deaths by suicide increased in 2020 and 2021 compared to previous years. More information can be found in Suspected deaths by suicide, monthly suicide registers on the AIHW suicide and self-harm monitoring website.