Mental Health Services

Ms PRATT (Frome) (14:51): My question is to the Minister for Health and Wellbeing. What, if any, additional funding for mental health services did the minister secure while attending the national Health Ministers' Meeting last week? With your leave, sir, and that of the house, I will explain.

Leave granted.

Ms PRATT: Every state and territory mental health peak body, including the Mental Health Coalition of South Australia, signed an open letter calling for a bilateral funding commitment into psychosocial services as an outcome of that national meeting.

The Hon. C.J. PICTON (Kaurna—Minister for Health and Wellbeing) (14:51): I am very happy to speak about the meeting that was held last week, the Health Ministers' Meeting, in a joint meeting with those other ministers where there is a split responsibility for mental health in those jurisdictions as well. As the shadow minister outlines, one of the key things that was talked about at that meeting was the need for psychosocial services across the country. That is obviously a very key topic on the agenda of all states and territories, and the commonwealth.

We heard from a number of different sectors, whether it be people who work in the sector, but also people from lived experience and carers. We also had deliberations with the Productivity Commission. The Productivity Commission is undertaking a review at the moment of the National Mental Health and Suicide Prevention Agreement that was signed, I think perhaps the day before we went into caretaker, before the last election by my predecessor, and clearly one of the key things in terms of the negotiation of that new agreement will be ensuring that we can improve the availability of psychosocial services.

For people who are not aware, psychosocial services are a level of services provided in the community—support services for people with mental health conditions—not psychiatry or psychology sorts of direct clinical services but help for people with their daily lives and to try to keep them healthy in the community. They are generally provided by people who have qualifications, such as a Certificate IV in Mental Health, and by non-government organisations. There are a number of those services that are provided through the NDIS. There are a number of those services that are provided by state and territories, but clearly there are more of those services that could reach more people.

There was an outcome of that meeting, which is available in the communique from the meeting, that all the states and territories and the federal government commit to, in the development of that new National Mental Health and Suicide Prevention Agreement, addressing unmet need in psychosocial services, as one of the two points that we will be working towards as part of that new agreement, and to make sure that everybody is committing in terms of their current level of effort in terms of the services they are providing.

Of course, I can report that here in South Australia not only will we be keeping our current level of effort, but we have been increasing it substantially. Whereas under the previous government there were significant levels of cuts to those services that were made in the order of some 20 per cent, there has been a substantial uplift in terms of the investing that we have made into those services since we have come into government.

The other thing that this, of course, connects to as well is the work that is underway at the moment at national cabinet level, and also between health ministers, treasurers and disability ministers in terms of the next National Health Reform Agreement, but also the agreements around the NDIS and foundational supports as well. From the states and territories I think there has been a degree of caution in terms of making sure that we can get that balance right, so that we are not going to have people unfairly cut off from the NDIS, where they are going to impact upon our state-run services, particularly public hospitals.

But I do think that there is a really good opportunity now, with the federal health minister, Mark Butler, taking on board both the NDIS and foundational support services, that we can reach an agreement that can ultimately provide care for more people in a better way through those foundational support services that can address some of that unmet need, but also at the same time reduce some of that increasing level of expenditure of the NDIS.