The Government has announced the formation of two new mental health ‘peak bodies’ to help address Australia’s rapidly growing need for psychological care.
A total of $8.5 million will be invested, the bulk of which ($7.5 million) will be used to establish and operate two independent, national peak bodies tasked with bringing the lived experience of mental health back into the system – one representing consumers and the other on behalf of carers and families.
Lived Experience Australia will also receive $900,000 to continue its research and build the capacity of consumer and carers, with the remaining $100,000 used to establish a regular stakeholder forum to increase transparency, accountability, and partnership with the sector.
The announcement was made on 30 January 2023 by the Minister for Health and Aged Care, Mr Mark Butler, and Assistant Minister for Mental Health and Suicide Prevention, Ms Emma McBride, at the Mental Health and Equity and Access Forum in Canberra.
“Mental ill health can affect every Australian, but we know that it hits some of us harder than others. Which is why we brought together people with lived experience alongside experts and clinicians to discuss how to improve mental health for everyone, whether you live in the wealthiest suburbs of our capital cities or the poorest parts of regional Australia,” Minister Butler said.
“Hearing from those with lived experience is incredibly important to making improvements in mental health. Progress will come from putting consumers and carers first.
“These two independent national bodies will amplify the voices of consumers and carers to drive equitable reform in mental health.”
These steps address recommendations made in recent reports, including the Productivity Commission’s Inquiry into Mental Health and work undertaken by the National Mental Health Commission, and are a welcome measure for many advocates, especially considering the outcry that followed the recent slashing of the extra 10 mental health sessions funded under the Better Access initiative during COVID.
“It gives patients a voice, it also gives carers a voice who play such a critical role in the recovery of their loved ones, particularly who are experiencing more severe mental illness. This is frankly something that should have happened many years ago,” Minister Butler said.
“I think this will play a really important role in helping consumers build the skills they need to come to the table and participate and contribute to the development of policy, along with, obviously, all of the service providers, the doctors, the psychiatrists, psychologists, and so many others who are very good at coming to the table and participating in these debates.”
The Forum follows the release of the independent Better Access evaluation by Melbourne University, which showed that while the program delivers promising outcomes, many Australians continue to miss out: in 2022, less than half of people from low socioeconomic backgrounds in major cities were able to access treatment they needed – despite most services being delivered in these areas.
Discussion at the Access forum focussed on how to make services more affordable and accessible to those who need them most, as part of broader system of care, and people with a lived experience of mental ill-health (who made up the largest cohort of attendees) were invited to share their invaluable insights into the system.
In a radio interview with Patricia Karvelas on ABC RN Breakfast the following morning (31 January 2023), Minister Butler clarified that Australia’s mental health system is under pressure from a diverse range of longstanding issues, as well as the impact of the pandemic and back-to-back natural disasters.
“Undoubtedly the experience of Australians lives over the last three years have aggravated all those pressures,” he said.
“We do not have enough workforce in the right place: people in parts of Australia, particularly in the outer suburbs of our cities and rural and regional Australians just don’t have access to services that are taken for granted in some of the wealthier suburbs in inner cities.”
The Minister explained that there are about 200 measures in the health portfolio related to mental health, Indigenous health and a range of other areas that just were not fully funded by the former government past this financial year.
“These are ongoing programs, they’re not pilots that were only supposed to be funded for a couple of years to see how that went – in many cases, these are programs that have been in place for many years or even decades,” Minister Butler said.
“We are having to find the money, go through the process and the Expenditure Review Committee to make sure that those important ongoing programs do not fall off a cliff on 30 June 2023… services that that people have relied upon for many years, good services, services that there’s no question mark on in terms of their quality, the evidence base, their ability to deliver service in an equitable way.
“Often, they are plugging gaps that otherwise would exist in a system where there is more demand driven service through Medicare. These are critically important services we are working hard on to make sure that Australians can continue to rely upon them.
“There was no easy solution presented to me by the sector yesterday. They recognise as much as anyone does that this is hard work, and we committed to them, to working with them very deeply – to start to respond to these needs.”