Sharing knowledge, improving treatment in complex psychosis

A focus on building clinical skills and capacity

For the most complex mental illnesses, treatment can be a lottery. People do better when they can receive support close to home, where they can stay connected to family, community and service providers; but the greatest expertise in these conditions is typically concentrated in a major centres to which many people do not have access.

The Mindgardens Tertiary Referral Service for Psychosis (TRSP) is developing new approaches to this issue, with a special remit to grow and share understanding among clinicians of how to respond to patients with severe forms of psychotic conditions – including those for whom standard therapies are ineffective.

Led by psychiatrist Associate Professor Julia Lappin, the TRSP acts as a remote resource for clinicians across NSW, sharing ideas for medication and psycho-therapeutic approaches in individual patients and giving clinical teams the back-up and confidence to manage their care.

The TRSP model is in line with a core Mindgardens belief: that better care does not always require new discoveries; sometimes it is more beneficial to focus on how the system delivers care to consumers, and streamline resources or knowledge or resources bottlenecks.

In addition to directly supporting patient care, the Mindgardens TRSP is investing in improving clinicians’ understanding of best-practice care approaches for people with complex psychosis, offering a series of educational webinars for mental health clinicians. The first webinar (illustrated) featured Professor Dan Siskind discussing clozapine prescribing and attracted nearly 200 clinicians from across NSW.

The interactive webinars, which will run throughout 2023 and feature topics such as medication prescribing and caring for people with drug-induced psychosis, are proving popular among NSW clinicians, with hundreds joining the online meetings.

Videos of the Mindgardens TRSP webinars are available at: Mindgardens Tertiary Referral Service for Psychosis Webinar Series: 2023

For details of upcoming webinars, see Mindgardens Events.

Mindgardens Neuroscience Network acknowledges the Traditional Owners of Country throughout Australia and recognises their continuing connection to land, waters and community. We pay our respect to them and their cultures, and to Elders past, present and emerging.

We acknowledge the voices of people with lived experience, their carers, families and kinship groups. We recognise the expertise acquired through living with a mental health, drug and alcohol or neurological disorder and acknowledge those who care for people on their recovery journey. We place lived experience at the heart of all that we do.