The advancement of a current health care strategies and introduction of a brand new health care policies can be defined as the health care reform. The government is very much responsible in introduction of a new health care policy or correction of an existing policy as the government has immense role in implementation. So it can be said that, the role of government in implementing those policies is another definition of the health care reform. In recent period of time, Australia has introduced various health reform plans and among them mental health reform is one of the important health reform in Australia. The Council of Australian Government (COAG) recently has launched a program named Roadmap for National Mental Health Reform 2021-22 in order to refurnish the existing plans and policies of the mental health care (Whiteford et al., 2014). Mental illness is one of the major concern of Australia and in Australia. According to a report of The Department of Health, almost half of the population that is almost 45.5% of total population is affected by mental illness in Australia (“Department of Health | Prevalence of mental disorders in the Australian population”, 2018). The mental health reform strategies are supported by the Australian Government so that the prevalence of the mental illness can be reduced and it should be in the controllable range. In this report, the mental health reform policy of Australia, the principles, objectives of the mental health reform, various pathways of implementation of the plans, role of government in execution of those plans and possible recommendation is briefly discussed.
The main goal of the Australian mental health reform strategy is to give an uninterrupted and effective service to the mentally ill patients of Australia. Day by day it is seen that the new technology is invented and it is a serious challenge for the health care provider to give an appropriate care by using those modern technologies along with increasing accessibility to all kind of information. The main goal of the mental health reform plans is to gather information about the experiences of the patients’ related to their opinion about the whole system, and about the failure of the system that are used to provide care to the patients. There are short term and long term objective of the mental health reform program. In the short term outcomes, it is expected that a proper plan should be formed within the time period of (2016-17) by the help of the PHNs and this plans are primarily focusing on the regional mentally ill patients. By using the Medicine Benefit Schedule (MBS), PHNs will supervise the facilities for the mental health patients’ in the territories and states. After rectifying the real gaps in the mental health service an improved plan can be made and that will result in increase in referral cases to the proper experts and improvement of mental health services. In the long term goal of this program is to observe the mental health services for the minimally ill patients that is the low intensity mental health services. Another long term goal of the mental health reform is to recognize the service lack related to psychological therapies of rural and remote area patients. In addition, enhancement of the service to the Torres Strait Islander is also another major area of concern (Aasw.asn.au, 2018). Lastly it can be said that, by introducing the mental health reform the mental health care sector tries to transform themselves into a new level as they are in front of a crucial condition related to mental health care.
There is a few principle that is followed by the mental health reform program of Australia. For example it can be said that, the government authorities mainly follows the principle like early detection of mental health problems, giving emergency care to the rural patients of mental health, giving special care to the mental health patients of older ages, providing a community level care , allowing more funds for the mental health care and research. Giving assistance to the mental health patients, who are in the transition period of their life after getting treated by the mental health care provider, is another key principle of that reform policies. The main goal of this assistance is to help those patients in coming back into their regular life (Crowe, 2017).
To execute the mental health reform strategies in Australia, the Australian government has a few methods and those are followed during the implementation process of the mental health reform. In latest mental health reform in Australia the government has initial focus on the introduction of Primary Health Network (PHN) in the treatment of the mentally ill patients. PHNs mainly play the role of medium who are responsible for the transmission of decision related to mental health care funding by the government to the local people of a particular locality in which they are operating as a health care professionals. To get the best outcome the PHNs mainly use the regional methods and languages (Meute et al., 2015).Under those PHNs there are several programs and that includes various development plans for the mental health patients of rural and remote areas. Along with this, they also try to detect signs of psychotic disorders, prevention of suicidal cases in the mental health patients… They also focuses on how to access the Allied Professionals Scheme (ATAPS) and other incentives related scheme for the mental health nurses (Rickwood et al., 2015). A ‘stepped care’ model is a very effective care model in case of treatment of the mental health patients and PHNs mainly follows this technique. The main goal of this technique is to give service in a broad range and also to arrange service according to the needs of the mental health patients (McGorry et al., 2014). They also use the regional approaches while providing services to the mental health patients and by using the regional approaches they also try to prevent suicides among the mental health patients (Bolton, Gunnell & Turecki, 2015). They also provide services to the minimally ill patients along with the severely ill patients. Not only this, they also give support to the patients who are at mild to moderate risk zone of mental illness as they have also the right to access all kind of services. The services for the mild to moderate ill patients is referred to as low intensity services (Clarke & Yarborough, 2013). The PHNs should use this technique in order to treat this type of patients who are at initial stage of their illness (Glavin & Leahy-Warren, 2013). In addition More PHNs should be engaged in the care of patients where there is a critical stage of stepped care exist. The sites selected are not biased and consists of rural and as well as metropolitan regions. This selection method will help to enhance the quality of stepped care model, low intensity care model and in addition the available health care packages will also be improved by this process (Aasw.asn.au, 2018). In Fifth National mental health plan mainly focus on reducing the social stigma related to the mental health illness and along with this, another major concern is improvement of health condition of the mental health patients as it is seen that physical health condition of the mental health patients is not good enough. This plan also focuses on the reduction of suicides among the mental health patients. However this plan focuses mainly on the suicidal cases of the patients who have already received treatment from the mental health care. In addition, the mental health condition of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander is another area of concern and giving special care to them is one of the major part of implementing the mental health reform plan. The responses form the consumer after having services should be documented so that those feedbacks can be utilized in betterment of services. To fix a particular cost for the mental health services a scheme was introduced named National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS) and the main function of this scheme was to document an appropriate price rate. This documented price values can be used in various type of mental health care along with various other sectors (Brophy et al., 2014). To get the most positive outcome of this plan, PHNs should be engaged in many other ways like rural care policies and introducing new ideas related to suicide prevention. To support the mental health patients in the transition phase, the partners in recovery (PIR) policy should be increased (Smith-Merry et al., 2015). A Mental health reform community is engaged in giving more support to the patients by transmitting the reports of changes caused by the implementation program to their higher authorities.
In implementing any kind of reform policies in a country, the government of that country in the most important stakeholders and Australia is not different from this condition. In implementing the mental health reform program in Australia, Australian Government and government of different territories are very much active and they are directly associated with the execution of the mental health reform policies by allowing funds for those programs (Mason, 2013). New South Wales (NSW) government has released budget for this program and that it is almost $95 million. From this fund, $6.4 million is given for the transition phase of the mentally ill patients. Along with this, $1.6 million was allowed for the improvement of second stage of community living initiative process in Sydney, South Eastern Sydney, Northern Sydney, Central Coast, Western Sydney and Western NSW. It was revealed that, this funds would be used for helping the mental health care provider who are providing care at community level in Western Sydney. Moreover, $38 million was allowed to increase the number of specialists who are expert in giving mental health care. To support the community in various territories and state of Australia $3.6 million was funded and this fund ultimately would help the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander clinicians of mental health. To provide support to the adolescent and child patient of mental health almost $2.2 million was given as fund in specific regions like South Western Sydney, Mid North Coast, Central Coast, Western Sydney, and Northern NSW. To provide psychological support to the patients of NSW, $39 million was allowed in budget. This funding was mainly allowed to secure plans for the refugees who came from Asian countries like Iraq and Syria. In order to recruit a huge number of trained personnel in mental health care sector a few amount of funding ($ 2.2 million) was released by the government. However, a few amount of fund would be spent as work force scholarship and that would be given to the mental health worker. Another important role of government in this reform policy is to allow fund for mental health research. For completion of this purpose government had allowed almost $5.1 million. From this amount, $3.4 million would be used for innovation and research purposes. Moreover, $ 1.7million would be used in modern techniques of data collection and that ultimately improve the quality of researches. In addition, it would help in betterment of mental health care in Australia and other territories (“Mental Health Reform 2017-18 – Reform”, 2018).
In Australia, people of various cultures will be found and they have their own language to speak. This cultural diversity and use of a huge number of languages have become a barrier to execute the mental health reform policies in Australia (Minas et al., 2013). In order to overcome those barriers, government and concerned authorities should recruit more GPs and PHNs who belong from different cultures. This will directly help in caring patients of different cultures. In addition to this, more amount of funding should be given as funds for pursuing more research in that field (Hall, 2015).
Conclusion
In conclusion, it can be said that mental health reform is a crucial step in the mental health care sector of Australia. The Australian Government has taken a lot of steps in order to deliver a proper health care in mental health sector. The PHNs and GPs are directly associated with the care giving process. However, there is a lot of scopes of improvement in terms care giving.
References
Aasw.asn.au. (2018). Mental health reform 2016 – AASW – Australian Association of Social Workers. [online] Available at: https://www.aasw.asn.au/practitioner-resources/mental-health-reform-2016 [Accessed 30 Oct. 2018].
Bolton, J. M., Gunnell, D., & Turecki, G. (2015). Suicide risk assessment and intervention in people with mental illness. BMJ: British Medical Journal (Online), 351.
Brophy, L., Hodges, C., Halloran, K., Grigg, M., & Swift, M. (2014). Impact of care coordination on Australia’s mental health service delivery system. Australian Health Review, 38(4), 396-400.
Clarke, G., & Yarborough, B. J. (2013). Evaluating the promise of health IT to enhance/expand the reach of mental health services. General hospital psychiatry, 35(4), 339-344.
Crowe, J. (2017). [online] Phrp.com.au. Available at: https://www.phrp.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/PHRP2721711.pdf [Accessed 30 Oct. 2018].
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Mason, J. (2013). Review of Australian government health workforce programs.
McGorry, P. D., Goldstone, S. D., Parker, A. G., Rickwood, D. J., & Hickie, I. B. (2014). Cultures for mental health care of young people: an Australian blueprint for reform. The Lancet Psychiatry, 1(7), 559-568.
Mental Health Reform 2017-18 – Reform. (2018). Retrieved from https://www.health.nsw.gov.au/mentalhealth/reform/Pages/mental-health-reform-2017-18.aspx
Meuter, R. F., Gallois, C., Segalowitz, N. S., Ryder, A. G., & Hocking, J. (2015). Overcoming language barriers in healthcare: A protocol for investigating safe and effective communication when patients or clinicians use a second language. BMC health services research, 15(1), 371.
Minas, H., Kakuma, R., San Too, L., Vayani, H., Orapeleng, S., Prasad-Ildes, R., … & Oehm, D. (2013). Mental health research and evaluation in multicultural Australia: developing a culture of inclusion. International journal of mental health systems, 7(1), 23.
Rickwood, D. J., Telford, N. R., Mazzer, K. R., Parker, A. G., Tanti, C. J., & McGorry, P. D. (2015). The services provided to young people through the headspace centres across Australia. The Medical Journal of Australia, 202(10), 533-536.
Smith-Merry, J., Gillespie, J., Hancock, N., & Yen, I. (2015). Doing mental health care integration: a qualitative study of a new work role. International journal of mental health systems, 9(1), 32.
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