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About the PMHC-MDS

Funding by the Australian Government Department of Health has been provided to Primary Health Networks (PHNs) through a Primary Mental Health Care flexible funding pool to support commissioning of mental health and suicide prevention services in six key service delivery areas:

  • low intensity psychological interventions for people with, or at risk of, mild mental illness;
  • psychological therapies delivered by mental health professionals to under serviced groups;
  • early intervention services for children and young people with, or at risk of mental illness;
  • services for people with severe and complex mental illness who are being managed in a primary care setting;
  • enhanced Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander mental health services; and
  • a regional approach to suicide prevention activities with a focus on improved follow-up for people who have attempted suicide or are at high risk of suicide.

The Primary Mental Health Care Minimum Data Set (PMHC MDS) will provide the basis for PHNs and the Department of Health to monitor and report on the quantity and quality of service delivery, and to inform future improvements in the planning and funding of primary mental health care services funded by the Australian Government.

The data reported by PHNs through the PMHC MDS will form the basis for production of key performance indicators used to monitor services delivered across the 31 PHN regions covered by PHNs.

Logicly has been contracted by the Department of Health to manage the PMHC MDS on its behalf.

A specification of the data items to be collected in the PMHC MDS is available.

If you would like to be notified about updates to this specification or announcements about the rollout of the PMHC MDS please subscribe to the PMHC MDS mailing list by sending an email to support@pmhc-mds.com with the subject “subscribe news@lists.pmhc-mds.com”. This is not a general discussion list. Only moderated users can send messages to this list.

Information about how to get started on the PMHC MDS is available and will be regularly updated.

Announcements

Latest

Update to the PMHC MDS and Data Specifications - 18/8/2025 (v2.16.0)

PMHC MDS Update v2.16.0

We are pleased to announce that PMHC MDS Update v2.16.0 was released on August 18, 2025.

As per the Department of Health, Disability and Ageing’s August 2025 PHN CEO Circular, the PMHC MDS has been updated to support the rebranding of Adult Mental Health Centres (AMHC) and HeadtoHealth to Medicare Mental Health Centres (MMHC).

The PHN CEO circular has been published at https://pmhc-mds.com/communications/#/2025/08/15/FOR-ACTION-Primary-Mental-Health-Care-Minimum-Data-Set-upcoming-changes-for-Medicare-Mental-Health-Centres-and-Universal-Aftercare/.

The following features have been implemented in the data entry interface:

  • A ‘MMHC’ response has been added to Program Type on both the Intake and Episode records
  • The ‘Head to Health Kids Hubs’ response on Funding Source has been renamed to ‘Kids Hubs’ on the Service Contact record
  • A ‘MMHC’ response has been added to Funding Source on the Service Contact record
  • A ‘MMHC’ response has been added to Organisation type referred to at Intake conclusion on the Intake record
  • A ‘MMHC’ response has been added to Organisation type referred to at Episode conclusion on the Episode record

The following features have been applied in the upload interface:

  • The upload interface now accepts uploads in the Version 4.1.1 data specification. The changes in this specification are documented below. This version is backwards compatible with the existing Version 4.1.0 specification.

The following updates have been implemented in the upload interface:

  • Trailing white space on sites is automatically trimmed
  • Improved the error message when a service contact site is not one of the defined sites for the provider organisation
  • Improved error messages when columns are missing from the Intake file/worksheet
  • Improved the error message when a duplicate primary service contact practitioner is added to a service contact

The following updates have been implemented in the reporting interface:

  • In reports that aggregate by site, changed the aggregation ‘No Site’ to ‘Site not defined’
  • Improved the layout when many data sources are selected so that the data sources don’t overflow and overlap with the “Select Report Type” heading.

The following updates have been implemented in the data entry interface:

  • Users with the Organisation Management or Data Entry roles can define or modify the Provider Organisation Sites field
PMHC MDS Data Specification Version 4.1.1

The PMHC MDS Data Specification update v4.1.1 was released on August 18 2025.

The following updates were implemented:

  • A ‘8: MMHC’ response has been added to Program Type on both the Intake and Episode records.
  • Response ‘24: Head to Health Kids Hubs’ on Funding Source has been renamed to ‘24: Kids Hubs’ on the Service Contact record
  • A ‘28: MMHC’ response has been added to Funding Source on the Service Contact record
  • A ‘45: MMHC’ response has been added to Organisation type referred to at Intake conclusion on the Intake record
  • A ‘25: MMHC’ response has been added to Organisation type referred to at Episode conclusion on the Episode record

The user guides have been updated to reflect these updates. They are available at https://docs.pmhc-mds.com/.

Previous

FOR ACTION: Primary Mental Health Care Minimum Data Set upcoming changes for Medicare Mental Health Centres and Universal Aftercare August 15, 2025

Update to the PMHC MDS - 6/5/2025 (v2.15.0) May 06, 2025

Final reminder of the End of Life for PMHC MDS version 4.0 Data Specification - 28/04/2025 April 28, 2025

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