Consultation of the new Chief Psychiatrist Standard: Sexual Safety in Mental Health Services

The APS believes the new Standard is a positive step towards the management of sexual behaviour in mental health services and particularly in mental health inpatient treatment facilities. We support the principle that everyone has the right to be safe from sexual harm in all mental health services. However, we are concerned that the Standard provides a blanket prohibitive approach that bans all sexual activity in acute inpatient settings, which may run counter to current best practice and represent a violation of human rights.

In the submission we recommend:

• The Standard differentiate and distinguish between appropriate and inappropriate sexual activity and provide clarity about what may be acceptable, particularly in the context of both acute and longer inpatient mental health settings.
• Adopting a flexible and adaptable approach which allows practitioners to better support patients and use discretion in clinical decision making.
• The Chief Psychiatrist provide further details around its expectations for implementation of the Standard.
• South Australian mental health services draw on psychologists with expertise in trauma-informed principles and practice to provide appropriate training, supervision and the development of relevant policies and procedures.

View submission