Victoria provides acute inpatient and community intervention services to support people with a mental illness who experience the sudden onset of significant and distressing symptoms that need immediate treatment.
The choice of service depends on the severity of the symptoms, the level of distress for the person involved, and the risk of harm to self or others.
Acute community intervention service (ACIS)
Acute community intervention services (ACIS) are provided by specialist public mental health services in response to requests for urgent assistance (assessment and short-term treatment) from members of the public, police, ambulance, general practitioners, service providers and others.
An ACIS response may be provided by a community team or through a broader integrated care approach delivered across a number of settings via a range of clinicians working together.
How to initiate an ACIS response
An ACIS response is available 24 hours a day, seven days a week, for people of all ages through a locally relevant application of the following three approaches:
- telephone triage – an initial telephone assessment to determine the urgency and nature of an ACIS response
- emergency department care – a senior mental health practitioner is available for assessment, consultation and advice
- acute assertive community outreach – an ACIS response delivers short- to medium-term community treatment as an alternative to acute inpatient treatment or to support transition from inpatient services.
ACIS guidelines
The Mental health service delivery: Acute Community Intervention Services guidelines provide guidance for specialist clinical mental health services responding to calls for help from people with a mental illness.
The guidelines are also relevant for emergency services such as Victoria Police and Ambulance Victoria.
These guidelines:
- provide a framework for delivering acute community-based mental health services across Victoria’s clinical designated mental health services, in line with sound practice and service reforms
- provide information and practice guidance that is consistent with the requirements of the Mental Health Act 2014
- describe the functions of acute assessment and community treatment as part of a suite of specialist clinical mental health services
- articulate the expectations of specialist clinical mental health services when working with external organisations.
Acute inpatient services
Acute inpatient services support people who cannot be assessed and treated safely and effectively in the community. General hospitals commonly provide acute inpatient services.
Acute inpatient services provide a range of therapeutic interventions and programs to patients and their families to learn more about the impact of the illness, explore ways to better manage the illness, improve coping strategies and move towards recovery.
All of the age-based mental health services – adult (16–64), child and adolescent (0–18) and aged persons (over 64) – also provide acute inpatient services for people who cannot be assessed and treated safely and effectively in the community.
These services provide voluntary and compulsory short-term treatment and care during an acute phase of mental illness.
Admission to an acute inpatient unit depends on the severity of the symptoms, the distress involved to the person and the risk of harm to self or others.
Community mental health and acute inpatient services
All specialist mental health services provide a range of community treatment and care components, located across a spectrum of continuing care that involves acute inpatient services.
Some services have separate teams for each function. However, increasingly services use integrated teams by rostering staff to undertake all required activities within a continuous-care framework for a given period.
Community mental health service components include:
- urgent community-based assessment and short-term treatment interventions for people with a mental illness in crisis
- intensive long-term support for people with prolonged and severe mental illness and associated high-level disability
- non-urgent, continuing-care services for people with a mental illness and their families or carers in the community.
Community mental health responses use an assertive outreach approach that may result in clinical staff being involved with people for extended periods of time or providing more episodic care.
Orygen Youth Health
Orygen Youth provides a specialised youth mental health clinical service for young people aged 15 to 25, with a focus on early intervention and youth specific approaches.
Reviewed 29 October 2025