Asset Survey of Mental Health and Drugs Facilities

Asset surveys are carried out to gather sufficient data to assess a facility’s ability to support the delivery of services at an acceptable standard. The assessments measure the nature and extent of any gap, between the actual and required state of a facility and what actions may be applied to diminish this gap; including establishing a scope of works and proposed project costs.

Facilities are assessed as being:
o at requirement: indicates services are, on average, able to be satisfactorily supported without unacceptable impairment
o above requirement: indicates some service aspects may exceed the required state
o below requirement: indicates some service aspects may be below the limit of acceptability.

State wide asset surveys of health facilities have generally been carried out as snap shot exercises, typically at five yearly intervals. There is now a movement away from such an approach to one which is more reliable and enduring. The recently completed asset survey of public sector residential aged care facilities was the first to have this new approach applied. Consistent with this rolling program of data capture, an asset survey of mental health and drugs facilities is now to be undertaken covering; residential rehabilitation centres, drug and alcohol centres, community mental health facilities and the Thomas Embling Forensic Hospital.