Mental health care blasted

Tens of thousands of New Zealanders with mental health problems are at risk of harm and even suicide because they are missing out on care, says a report to the Government.

Despite a massive increase in state spending on mental health services since the mid-1990s there has not been any noticeable increase in the number of patients being treated.

In a stark warning to the Government, the Mental Health Commission says the public health sector "needs to look seriously" at its lack of progress and those parts of acute services that are overloaded.

Annual state funding rose from $270 million in 1993-94 to $801.7 million in 2003-04 - an increase of 142 per cent after adjusting for inflation. Clinical full-time-equivalent staff doubled in the decade to last year.

Yet for the first half of last year, slightly more than half the number of people expected to be suffering from severe mental illness accessed the services that care for them, the commission says in a Government briefing paper. An estimated 57,774 people needing help missed out.

This level of access - seeing only 1.6 per cent of the population, when 3 per cent are thought to suffer severe mental illness at any one time - "was largely the same level as estimates for 1995".

To receive care, people need to be suffering worse symptoms, as services struggle with demand.

"If access to services does not improve and people experiencing mental ill health are denied essential services, the result will be longer and more severe experiences of mental illness, greater likelihood of relapse, more severe life disruptions, impacts on employment and family relationships, self-harm and suicide.

"Delivering good services when they are needed encourages less demand for high-cost mental health services less often, for shorter periods, and more often on a voluntary basis," says the commission in one of its most strongly worded reports released publicly since its creation in 1998.

"The acute crisis end of the services spectrum has become overloaded. People find it difficult to get timely and relevant access to service."

The paper also criticises health boards for becoming "somewhat stuck" on hospital-based care, which it says research shows contributes less to recovery than comparable services in the home and community.