Professor Ed Heffernan

The University of Queensand

Ed Heffernan BSc (Hons), MB BS, MPH, PhD, FRANZCP

Ed Heffernan is the Director of the Queensland Forensic Mental Health Service and Professor in Psychiatry at the University of Queensland. He has over twenty-five years’ experience as a psychiatrist working with people experiencing mental health crisis and mental problems who encounter the criminal justice system. He leads the Police Mental Health Liaison Service, an innovative acute mental health service that collaborates with Police, including Negotiators, in the first response to people who are experiencing mental health problems. He leads a research group at the Queensland Centre for Mental Health Research and is the Principal Investigator of the Partners in Prevention study examining first responses to suicide crisis in Queensland. This work includes a globally unique linked data study of 70,000 individuals who were the subject of 220,000 suicide related calls to emergency services, linked to 20 million health records. Using this data, a sub-study was undertaken, in collaboration with obstetric colleagues, of women in the perinatal period who were the subject of a suicide related call to emergency services. The results and implications of this study will be outlined.