Some people’s mental health care needs require care in a hospital setting. The care may be provided in a hospital ward or other facility such as an emergency department or outpatient clinic. When receiving hospital care, a patient may be admitted to the hospital for part of a day (same day admitted mental health care), a single overnight stay, or for a number of days.
Data downloads
Same day admitted mental health-related care 2018–19 tables (119KB XLSX)
Same day admitted mental health-related care 2018–19 section (851KB PDF)
Data source and key concepts related to this section
Data coverage includes the time period 2006–07 to 2018–19. This section was last updated in November 2020.
Key points
- In 2018–19, there were 59,888 same day admitted mental health-related separations from public hospitals of which almost one third (31.5%) included specialised psychiatric care.
- Almost 1 in 4 (23.2%) of same day, admitted mental health-related separations with specialised psychiatric care in public hospitals had a principal diagnosis of Depressive episode.
- About 20,300 patients received same day admitted mental health care from private hospitals.
- About 274,000 days of same day care were provided by private hospitals.
- Between 2008–09 and 2018–19, there has been an average annual increase of 10.4% in the population rate of public same day separations for patients aged 18–24 years with specialised psychiatric care.
In comparing care across states and territories, it should be noted that models of care differ between jurisdictions and between public and private hospitals. This can affect the reported volume of same day admitted care and the inclusion or omission of some types of care. Patients receive specialised psychiatric care in a psychiatric hospital or in a hospital’s psychiatric unit. Patients with mental illness may also have a same day admission to other areas of a hospital for medical or surgical care where health care workers may not be specifically trained to care for the mentally ill. These same day admissions to hospitals are classified as without specialised psychiatric care.
In order to provide the most comprehensive view of same day admitted care, two different data sources are used in this section for public and private hospitals (described in detail in each section below). It is important to note that some activity reported as same day admitted care by private hospitals may not require admission in the public hospital setting, and would instead be reported a Community mental health care in that setting. Therefore, comparisons of the volume of care provided by public and private hospitals described in this section should be made with caution.