Mental Health Services

The Hon. T.J. STEPHENS (15:10): My question is to the Minister for Health. Will the minister update the council on acute mental health services in South Australia?

The Hon. S.G. WADE (Minister for Health and Wellbeing) (15:10): I thank the honourable member for his question. Following the Oakden scandal, the Marshall Liberal government was elected with both a commitment and a responsibility to improve the state mental health services, particularly acute mental health services. Often, when the mental health system is not working optimally, we see the impact and we see it in emergency departments. When mental health patients can't be placed elsewhere in the health system, they often remain in emergency departments. Emergency departments do not provide the best environment for mental health consumers to wait for treatment.

The Marshall Liberal government has recognised this and has already delivered real improvements in acute mental health services. Since we were elected a short 17 months ago, we have opened the 10-bed psychiatric intensive care unit at the Royal Adelaide Hospital, which Labor had left unopened; we have opened five mental health short-stay beds at the Lyell McEwin Hospital; we have implemented a forensic court assessment and diversion service; and last week we delivered a further 10 mental health beds with the opening of 10 forensic mental health beds at Glenside.

These beds will ease pressure on our hospital system in several ways. They will free up general mental health beds in hospitals, which are currently being used by forensic patients. That will in turn reduce the waiting time for mental health patients in our emergency departments. The Glenside beds will also provide a more clinically appropriate space for the treatment of forensic mental health consumers and, by providing this place and facilitating patient flow through the forensic mental health pathway, we are reducing forensic mental health patients in our emergency departments. This will be an improvement for the patients themselves, for other people presenting to the emergency department and for our clinicians working in an already high-pressure environment.

Around Australia, we are seeing an increase in mental health-related concerns and this government is determined to respond to them. Labor didn't even open the PICU mental health beds at the new RAH before they left government. Labor closed the Lyell McEwin short-stay unit just months before the election. This government has delivered more mental health beds. We are getting on with the job of improving health services in this state, with investment in both acute mental health and alternative pathways.