Full marks for mental health reform

The first thing to know about the government’s new mental health reform package is that it doesn’t involve any additional spending.

That’s cause for celebration in any reform, but especially in the case of mental health, where funding has not been insufficient but insufficiently well-directed.

The second thing worth noting is its ‘stepped care model,’ which offers different levels of treatment for patients with different levels of need.

This is a huge advance over previous mental health reforms, which too often saw entitlements designed to help the truly needy swamped by the middle-class worried well.

Mild and moderate conditions like depression and anxiety disorder have been the main drivers of a near tripling in mental health spending over 20 years and the doubling of the number Australians receiving an MBS-subsidised mental health service annually over six years. These conditions are serious issues and deserving of attention and treatment. But government spending should prioritise those patients whose need is the greatest.

The latest reform package increases the number of services (including therapy sessions and nursing visits) available each year to patients whose mental illness is classified as severe. This will improve the quality of treatment in a more well-targeted way than the ‘Better Access’ overhaul of 2006.

Praise for the new reform has been bipartisan-even the editorial board of The Age says the government has ‘got it right’ this time. The applause is well deserved.