IMPLICATIONS OF MENTAL HEALTH ISSUES FOR NURSING The integration of mental health care into primary health care has become an area of priority both locally and internationally. This process, known as ‘mainstreaming’is now completed in the state of Victoria, Australia, in response to the launch of the Mental Health Policy (Australian Health Ministers 1992). Mainstreaming is characterised by a fundamental shift of psychiatric services from psychiatric institutions to general health settings. Mainstreaming was intended to increase consumers’ access to a quality, comprehensive health care service and to reduce the stigmatisation of and discrimination against people experiencing a mental illness (Whiteford 1998).