Crisis, care & treatment options
A summary of crisis, care and treatment options, within and outside NorthWestern Mental Health.
Crisis
If your patient is presenting in an emergency situation, call 000 for an immediate response.
If your patient is currently seeing a clinician at one of our youth, adult or older person’s clinics, and you would like to discuss treatment or care plans, it is always best to make contact with the appropriate local mental health service directly, and ask to speak to the consumer's key clinician, Monday to Friday, 9am to 5pm.
Find out contact and location details for each of our services.
In the event that your contact about a current patient cannot wait until business hours, or your patient is not a current client of NorthWestern Mental Health but lives in our catchment area, call our Triage service (after hours and on weekends) on 1300 874 243 (1300 TRIAGE).
Useful information about crisis and risk assessment can be accessed via:
- HealthPathways Melbourne, a site with information designed and written for use during a consultation, to empower clinicians to make the best decisions, together with patients, at the point of care. Each pathway provides clear and concise guidance for assessing and managing a patient with a particular symptom or condition
- The Royal Australian College of General Practitioners resources on mental health risk assessment for GPs
- beyondblue also provides useful resources for health professionals
Access our curated list of crisis services.
Care options
We encourage people wanting to discuss their mental health needs to contact their local GP first. The other options to discuss with consumers include:
- Seeing a general counsellor
- Seeing a private psychiatrist or psychologist
- Contacting their local mental health community support service
- Contacting a specialised support service
- Contacting a public clinical mental health service
Access information about all NorthWestern Mental Health services.
Specialty treatment services
- Eating disorders at the National Eating Disorders Collaboration and The Butterfly Foundation
- Perinatal mental heath care at the Centre of Perinatal Excellence
- Child and young people mental health services (under 15)
Access information about NorthWestern Mental Health specialty services.
Directories
- National Health Services Directory to find a general counsellor psychologist, nurse, social worker, occupational therapist
- Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Psychiatrists to find a private psychiatrist
- Australian Psychological Society to find private psychologist
Access contact and location information for all our services.
Treatment plans
- Better Access initiative has a suite of Mental Health Treatment Plans which can be used by GPs to assess and manage patients with mental illness, and provide referral pathways for treatment by private psychiatrists, psychologist and other allied health practitioners.