Introduction

The Standards for Psychiatric Disability Rehabilitation and Support Services (PDRSS standards) have been endorsed by QIC for use within QIC’s Standards and Accreditation Program. For QIC accreditation, organisations review their psychiatric disability rehabilitation and support services (PDRSS) against both the PDRSS Standards and QIC’s Core Module.

About the PDRSS standards

The Victorian Department of Human Services (DHS) — in its introduction to the PDRSS standards document — provides useful background information about the PDRSS standards. You can download a copy of the standards from DHS’s
website: http://www.health.vic.gov.au/mentalhealth/pdrss/pdrss_standards.pdf

The major issues raised are restated below:

There are 11 PDRSS standards, which are adapted from the National Standards for Mental Health Services to reflect the philosophy and the specialist role of PDRSS in facilitating and supporting the integration of people with psychiatric disabilities into their local community and its programs.

They are concerned with the central aspects of PDRSS provision and expand upon existing human rights and equal opportunity principles. They are informed by legislation concerning freedom of information, privacy, and occupational health and safety. They are also guided by relevant professional codes of conduct.

The three priority areas of the Second National Mental Health Plan inform the operation and guiding principles of the standards. These are:

The PDRSS standards are outcome focussed and have as their aim the achievement of the best possible support and rehabilitation for people with psychiatric disabilities and support for carers.

PDRSS standards

The standards are organised under three key themes and cover the following areas.

Universal human rights issues

Organisational structure of PDRSS

Principles guiding the delivery of care

PDRSS quality journal

The document you complete when you self- assess against the PDRSS standards is called a quality journal and is organised into sections following the service specific standards. An organisation must collect evidence about its systems and quality improvement activities in order to determine whether or not it meets a standard. As in the core module there are evidence questions to prompt your thinking about your systems. A QIC standards guide is available to support your self assessment.