MENTAL HEALTH — PREVENTIVE SERVICES
583. Ms L. METTAM to the Minister for Health:
My question is to the Minister for
Health representing the Minister for Mental Health. I refer to the latest
figures, which reveal a 25 per cent increase in children who attended an
emergency department for a mental health reason between 2017 and 2020.
Given that it is well documented
that prevention and early intervention is critical to improving long-term
outcomes, why is the budget for prevention still only 2.2 per cent of the total
mental health expenditure?
Mr R.H. COOK replied:
There is no government more
committed to preventive mental health services than the McGowan government.
That is the reason we are continuing to invest so much in mental health. As
part of our $1.9 billion package into health
services, $495 million is dedicated to mental health services, both in our
hospitals and, more importantly, in our community. We continue to grow
the amount of community-based mental health services and we continue to grow
the amount of preventive mental health services as part of the Mental Health
Commission's commitment to the Sustainable health review, which
will see five per cent of the mental health budget spent on preventive mental
health services by 2029. We will continue with that program.
In
addition, we are working on a range of initiatives to grow the workforce in
mental health. That is the key constraint on growing our preventive mental health services and our community-based
services. The workforce strategy released by the Mental Health Commission in the last couple of years provides a pathway
of how we can continue to grow the mental health workforce so we can
continue to grow our mental health community-based services. We can throw as much money as we like at that sector, but until
we have the people who can deliver those services, we will continue to
struggle to have the services in the community that we need, which is the
reason that, in concert with the Minister for Mental Health, as part of our big
graduate nurse intake program, we are dedicating a significant proportion of that to giving our new nurse graduates experience
in the mental health sector so they can choose to specialise in the
sector and go on to provide great support to all our people coming to our
mental health services.
We
have seen a significant increase in the number of people coming to our
emergency departments with mental health issues, particularly in our
child and adolescent health services. The only way we can respond to that is to
continue to make sure we have great preventive mental health care and that we
continue to grow the services both in the community and our hospitals. That is
why the McGowan government is investing so much in mental health.