Specialised mental health services are those with a primary function to provide treatment, rehabilitation or community health support targeted towards people with a mental disorder or psychiatric disability. These activities are delivered from a service or facility that is readily identifiable as both specialised and serving a mental health care function.

Hospitals and community mental health establishments and residential mental health establishments.

The concept of a specialised mental health service is not dependent on the inclusion of the service within the state or territory mental health budget.

A service is not defined as a specialised mental health service solely because its clients include people affected by a mental disorder or psychiatric disability.

The definition excludes specialist drug and alcohol services and services for people with intellectual disabilities, except where they are established to assist people affected by a mental disorder who also have drug and alcohol related disorders or intellectual disability.

These services can be a sub-unit of a hospital even where the hospital is not a specialised mental health establishment itself (e.g. designated psychiatric units and wards, outpatient clinics).