Since the National Mental Health Policy in 1992, Australian governments have committed to national monitoring of the effectiveness of public mental health services. To support this, the development of the Mental Health National Outcomes and Casemix Collection (NOCC) has been a central strategy in Australia’s National Mental Health Information Development Priorities. The NOCC is the national specification of a set of standardised measures of consumer symptoms and functioning and a protocol for their collection at key points of care within public specialised clinical mental health services.

The Australian Mental Health Outcomes and Classification Network (AMHOCN) was established as a consortium to support the implementation of the NOCC and comprises three components that operate both individually and collaboratively to support the collection, analysis and reporting, and training and service development activities for the NOCC.