All Hours Suicide Support Service

What is All Hours Suicide Support Service (AHS)?

All Hours Suicide Support Service provides phone counselling that supports Primary Health Network clients when their allied health practitioner is not available.

All Hours Suicide Support Service (AHS) provides supports clients who present with low-to-medium risk of suicide 24 hours a day, seven days a week. This service ensures that clients have access to professional counselling any time of the day or night.

AHS counsellors are qualified and professionally trained to make outbound calls to check in with a client. These calls can occur once a day for up to two weeks at a time. In the event that additional calls are required for a client, this will first need to be confirmed with AHS.

AHS (formerly called ATAPS Suicide Support Service) is a free support service that is available around the clock.

AHS is not responsible for the ongoing case management of a client as this is a short-term interim counselling service.

Note: If you are a client who has not been referred to this service and requires counselling support, please call Suicide Call Back Service on 1300 659 467 at any time. In an emergency, please call 000.

Who is eligible to use AHS?

Which health practitioners can use the service?

Allied health practitioners (including but not limited to psychologists, counsellors, mental health nurses, and social workers) who are registered with a Primary Health Network (PHN) can refer clients to the All Hours Suicide Support Service. AHS are able to offer short-term interim counselling when:

• A new client has to wait more than three days until their first appointment.
• A client requires support after-hours while going through a challenging time.
• A client has a long waiting time until their next scheduled appointment.
• A practitioner is unable to see their client for a period of time due to going on leave, for example.

GPs who have referred their patients to a PHN for psychological therapy services can also use AHS in the instance that a PHN practitioner has a long wait time.