CEO Update - The concerning trend in mental health spending

The concerning trend in mental health spending

The politicians are back, parliament sits next week, and already we’ve heard from the Prime Minister and Leader of the Opposition as they both try to set up the political year.

Today we also heard from the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare with a headline report which says $8.5 billion was spent nationally on mental health services in 2014/15 – a reported increase of $911 million from 2010/11.

As we finalise our pre-budget submission, the AIHW report is a perfect example of why we need the Commonwealth to commit to targets, measures and accountabilities in relation to mental health spending and service delivery.

This headline figure masks a concerning trend in mental health spending, and hides the reality of what is really happening on the ground in our communities. How does this reported increase relate to consumers and carers? I often wonder what people think when they see a story like this – especially when it gets presented, erroneously in my view, as an increase in per capita investment in mental health.

Simply put, what these numbers today show is that we are not counting the right things. They tell us nothing about the effectiveness of all this spending. They tell us very little about how this funding is allocated within anything but the biggest of categories – public hospital services for admitted patients. They tell us nothing about whether this spending is providing the sorts of programs and services that people want and need, nor whether these services are effective!

Until we actually have governments set targets and embrace accountability we will never know the different proportion of spending between state and federal governments, and who is responsible for what, and what has been most effective.

Headlines like these hide the reality that the people who are experiencing the system know that it’s a system that is not up to scratch. The system is still fragmented and confused, with huge gaps, especially at the community level, and it is fraught with uncertainty about funding at almost every level.

Over the coming weeks, and leading into our Parliamentary Advocacy Day on March 23, we will continue to brief the government, opposition and other parties on our key concern that both spending and programs in community based services are going backwards from a Commonwealth perspective. That means the Commonwealth is spending less per head on community based mental health and are prematurely withdrawing programs like PHaMs and Partners in Recovery as part of the transition to the NDIS.

To make mental health reform real, we need to set real targets and accountabilities because we’re investing real money… but more importantly, and this is the key… with real people – not just numbers.

To hear more click here for my interview with ABC radio today.

Frank Quinlan

Chief Executive Officer