Key features of the Home Treatment Team

• The Home Treatment Team (HTT) involves a multidisciplinary team, available from 9am till 9pm to support people with psychiatric problems as an alternative to hospital admission.
• The aim is to keep patients in their own homes, avoiding unnecessary admission through home based assessment support and treatment.
• The HTT will assess patients with mental disorders of all age groups. The client’s postal address should be within 25 km of the team base.
• HTT involves psychiatric doctors, community psychiatric nurses, psychologist and other professionals trained in mental health
• The service is community orientated. Therefore, the assessment and treatment will take place at home.
• The team (usually a Doctor and a nurse) will see the patient at home in their own environment which may reduce the stigma of coming into a psychiatric hospital.
• The team will then work hard to gain the confidence of the patient and slowly engage them in the treatment process.

Goals of Home treatment team

• It aims to work with patients and families who are suffering from an acute mental health crisis, and refusing treatment for their mental health condition.
• It aims to work with people with long standing mental illness, who find it difficult to engage with services and people involved in their care (families, carers, doctors and other professionals).
• The team also support people with mental disorders and their families, following discharge from psychiatric hospital for long term monitoring.