October 19, 2005
The Age

Australia's mental health care system is broken and failing, a new report has found.

The Mental Health Council of Australia report also calls for mental health care funding to be boosted to 12 per cent of overall health spending within five years.

Thousands of Australians who are either suffering from mental illness or caring for them were surveyed for the report Not For Service: Experiences of Injustice and Despair in Mental Health Care in Australia.

The report was released in Sydney today by federal Health Minister Tony Abbott.

MHCA chair Keith Wilson said the report found that Australians with a mental illness and their carers were suffering every day because they could not get the help they needed.

The report called for greater funding and recommended that the state and federal governments cooperate on the delivery of mental health services, Mr Wilson said. "Governments must then agree to a new annual report mechanism - a national mental health report with real performance measures and targets," he said.

Mr Wilson said funding needed to be increased over the next five years so that expenditure on mental health care reached 12 per cent of total health funding by 2010/11.

Mr Abbott today acknowledged the need for better services but said the system would work better if just one level of government dealt with the issue.

"I will do my best to take up the challenge . . . but it's not just a challenge for me alone," Mr Abbott said.

Co-author of the report, Professor Ian Hickie, said Australia urgently needed all governments to commit to a process of well-resourced mental health reform.

"Clearly our services are failing to meet community expectations of reasonable emergency and ongoing care on a daily basis," Prof Hickie said in a statement.

"It is time to rethink our national approach and focus immediate attention on new services and new approaches."

-AAP