New mental health crisis respite care facility to open in Dunedin

Dunedin’s capacity for emergency mental health respite care is set to increase through an expanded service contract between the Southern District Health Board (Southern DHB) and community service provider Pact. 

A five-bed home will open in September, providing adults experiencing acute mental distress with 24-hour in-home support in a residential environment less than 10 minutes from Dunedin Hospital.  

The Pact-owned, well-established property will be furnished in comfortable, spacious, home-like surroundings and support with an emphasis on privacy, dignity, wellbeing, comfort, safety, and easy access to a tranquil garden setting. Families, who are essential to a service user’s recovery, will also have a space to see their loved ones privately or even stay overnight on site if they wish to do so.  

The home will be run by Pact, which specialises in helping people recovering from mental illness through supported 24/7 accommodation, planned respite care and community support. Pact already manages a similar home in Lower Hutt.  

Toni Gutschlag, Executive Director of Mental Health, Addictions and Intellectual Disabilities for the Southern DHB, says the new partnership will provide people in crisis with professional clinically led community-based support rather than hospitalisation, enabling them to remain closer to home. 

“Dunedin has historically had a one-bed unit available for emergency respite care, so this capacity expansion is addressing a long-standing service gap. 

“Having a dedicated team of trained mental health support workers and a larger facility with comfortable, home-like surroundings will allow us to provide earlier intervention and more focused care for people in the Dunedin region. We anticipate that this will reduce hospital admissions and hope it leads to an improved experience for users and their whānau.” 

The new facility will increase current capacity from 365 bed nights to 1,825 bed nights per year, freeing up hospital beds and staff.  Inpatient hospital services will continue to be available for those who need them.  

Pact General Manager Thomas Cardy says Pact is delighted to provide the much-needed respite service for the community and says its team will accommodate clients who are referred by the EPS (the emergency mental health crisis service provided by SDHB) or community mental health teams.  

“As we already do in other areas, we will be working closely with the Southern DHB’s crisis/community teams and inpatient services to ensure tangata whaiora – a person seeking health and wellbeing – receives the support they when they need it. The service will be staffed by a mix of highly skilled clinicians and support workers who have knowledge and experience working with people experiencing a mental health crisis.” 

Work is also getting underway to set up a crisis support service in the Queenstown Lakes District.  More details on this will be released once available. 

The Dunedin and Queenstown Lakes initiatives both meet areas of need identified through the 2021 Time for Change – Te Hurihanga review. They are part of a larger programme of mental health reforms underway to bring mental health and wellbeing care closer to home and make it easier to access for everyone. 

Time for Change – Te Hurihanga is a focused year-long project led by the Southern DHB to address health, equity, location, social and systemic issues and put people at the centre of care.  

It’s part of the direction to transform Aotearoa’s mental health and addiction system over the next 10 years. The new health and disability reforms recognise that mental wellbeing is influenced by factors including income, housing, and employment - requiring a whole-of-government approach. It aims to support people to stay well, and have access to help that works for them, when and where they need it. 

More resources for the Time for Change – Te Hurihanga programme, including project updates, frequently asked questions, who’s involved and opportunities to engage, as well as the full Time for Change – Te Hurihanga review, will be available from Wednesday 8 June at www.southernhealth.co.nz/timeforchange.