Mental Health Productivity Commission Inquiry Report response

WayAhead – Mental Health Association NSW has welcomed the Productivity Commission Inquiry Report into mental health. WayAhead believes the report is an important document which outlines practical and economically sensible measures to improve the consumer experience of the mental health system. WayAhead was very pleased to see the reports emphasis on the role of schools and workplaces in helping build a better mental health system. These were both areas which WayAhead advocated for in its submission to the Productivity Commission produced earlier this year. WayAhead was encouraged to see and supports the following recommendations and discussion points in the final report:

• Support the mental health of new parents
• Make the social and emotional development of school children a national priority
• Create an evidenced-based person-centred mental health system
• Expand community-based mental healthcare, including hospital outpatient clinics and outreach services
• Commit to no discharge from care into homelessness
• Legal representation for people facing mental health tribunals
• Equip workplaces to be mentally healthy including no liability clinical treatment for mental health related workers compensation claims and elevating the importance of psychosocial health and safety in the workplace
• Consumer and carer participation and advocacy in all aspects of the mental health system which recognises the important role peer support workers have in the mental health system

WayAhead still believes that while every effort must be made to improve the mental health system by implementing the reports recommendations, the reforms must ensure that existing programs which are proven to work, continue to be supported by governments and local health bureaucracies in favor of piloting new unproven mental health services. WayAhead calls on the Australian, State and Territory governments to actively pursue the reports recommendations and take the period between now and the Australian Government’s official response to further engage with consumers and mental health service providers about the recommendations and if they are to be taken forward, how they will be implemented to ensure the mental health system truly addresses the needs of consumers, carers and clinicians and does so in an economically sustainable and responsible way.