Our Specialist Mental Health Service is the major provider of mental health services for the Canterbury District Health Board. The service aims to provide “excellence of care for people with mental illness, ensuring their dignity, safety and independence”. Services are provided at Hillmorton Hospital, The Princess Margaret Hospital, Christchurch community sites and Ashburton Hospital.
Hillmorton Hospital is the largest site and offers a wide range of mental health services. Inpatient services include acute adult, forensic, alcohol and drug detoxification, psychiatric services for adults with intellectual disability, assessment, treatment and rehabilitation for intellectual disability and long term rehabilitation. Outpatient services based at Hillmorton include Psychiatric Emergency Service, Single Point of Entry, adult community, rehabilitation, early intervention, youth specialty, intellectual disability, anxiety disorders and forensic services. It is located on a spacious suburban Christchurch site with plenty of parking.
Hillmorton Hospital also provides Te Korowai Atawhai (Māori Mental Health Service). The aim of this service is to improve the delivery and quality of health services to tangata whaiora (Māori consumers of mental health services), primarily through the mahi of Pukenga Atawhai (Maori Mental Health Workers) employed in a number of multidisciplinary clinical teams. The philosophy of the service is Whanaungatanga – a concept which not only acknowledges that our work is not done in isolation but as a member of a whānau; whanaungatanga also acknowledges the importance of tangata whaiora being members of a whānau.
The Princess Margaret Hospital inpatient services include child and youth, mothers and babies, eating disorders and rehabilitation.
Outpatient teams, based in the community, are provided for adults and children. Mental health liaison and consultation teams are based at Christchurch Public Hospital Emergency Department and the Police Watch house.
