The National Mental Health Performance Framework (the Framework) is a key strategy for facilitating a culture of continuous quality improvement in mental health service delivery. The Framework supports Australian, state and territory governments’ commitment to improving accountability and transparency at the Mental Health Service Organisation (MHSO) level. The Key Performance Indicators for Australian Public Mental Health Services (NMHPSC, 2013) have been developed to provide a common language for describing service delivery and measuring performance and quality of care. The 15 indicators address some of the domains of the Tier III – Health System Performance of the Framework which supports service improvements through benchmarking activities at the service level.

This indicator set contains 2 subordinate indicator sets which are related but serve 2 different purposes.

1. Key Performance Indicators for Australian Public Mental Health Services (Service level version) (2018)
   The indicator specifications developed for the purpose of use by public MHSO’s are included in this set. The Service level version should be used for local (that is, within jurisdictions, organisations, services, etc.) benchmarking and service improvement initiatives.
    
2. Key Performance Indicators for Australian Public Mental Health Services (Jurisdictional level version) (2018) 
   Jurisdictional representatives prepare data for national submission and publication using this set of specifications. Data are published on the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare's (AIHW) website in Mental health services in Australia: Key Performance Indicators for Australian Public Mental Health Services.

Data supplied at the jurisdictional level for national reporting purposes requires slightly different calculation methodologies for some indicators, therefore, requiring a different version of the indicators. In addition, indicator specifications adapted for national reporting purposes make reference to nationally mandated data definitions, including cross-referencing to standard terms defined in the National Health Data Dictionary. Therefore, the language used to describe terms may also differ between the Service level version and the Jurisdictional level version.

The Framework and the indicators are specifically targeted towards measuring performance of public mental health services. However, a longer term aspiration is that this work might be aligned with private and non-government MHSO activity to provide a whole of service measurement framework.