Mental health document withdrawn

Monash Health will withdraw a document that mandates a minimum of three patients should be discharged from mental health wards each day after concerns over patient welfare.

While the document states a mandate to discharge three patients a day, Medical director of mental health at Monash Health, Professor David Clark says it was merely supposed to represent general planning.

He says the operational document was part of a restructure of admission procedures from the Emergency Department to mental health wards, and based on information received, roughly three patients a day were being discharged into community services and treatment.

Some aspects of the document will be rewritten to be more "patient sensitive", and are all part of normal operations for bed management, he says.

"I am not going to defend everything in the document," Prof Clark told ABC Radio on Friday.

"I think there are some things badly written in here and we are going to withdraw this document and we will rewrite it.

"I am distressed that this has caused alarm to community people, nurses or staff."

A decision to discharge is a clinical decision made by psychiatrists, and the time patients spent in hospitals could widely wary, Prof Clark says.