Representatives from Australia’s mental health sector gathered at Sydney’s Brain and Mind Research Institute (BMRI) on Tuesday, 11 March 2014, for the launch of Crossroads: Rethinking the Australian mental health system. Crossroads is the second major report from a collaboration between ReachOut.com by Inspire Foundation and EY Australia, following on from Counting the Cost: The impact of young men’s mental health on the Australian economy, released in June 2012.
In launching Crossroads, John Feneley, NSW Mental Health Commissioner, addressed the current and future shortages in the mental health care system identified by the report.
“The Crossroads report demonstrates clearly that addressing these shortages is not just a matter of funding. Putting more money into a failing system will only create an unsustainable cost burden on the Australian public" John Feneley said.
"To meet the combined challenges of the growing demand and the increasing costs of service delivery, we need to reconceptualise the way we think about mental health care and support. The Crossroads report recommends that Australia’s mental health service system centre around a framework that provides a range of care and support options that are tailored to people’s differing needs.”
Also speaking at the launch were Rob McLeod, EY Oceania CEO and Regional Managing Partner, Julie White, Chair of ReachOut.com by Inspire Foundation, Jonathan Nicholas, CEO of ReachOut.com by Inspire Foundation, and Professor Ian Hickie AM, Executive Director of BMRI.
Rob McLeod said, “It is clear that the demand for mental health services will continue to increase and we need a system that will be able to respond to those needs, not only in a cost-effective and sustainable way, but in a way that also promotes prevention and early intervention.”
Jonathan Nicholas spoke of a very personal interest in making the right decisions now for the future: “Recently my oldest son turned five. In ten years he will be at an age where it is likely that he and many of his friends will need access to timely and effective help. I am confident that if we make the right decisions now, his experiences of getting help will be vastly better than they are today.”
The report attracted national media coverage including ABC-TV, The Australian, Croakey, and Australian Policy Online, and was well received by launch guests and by members of the mental health sector more broadly.
• For more information on Crossroads: Rethinking the Australian mental health system, and to download a copy of the report, click here.
• View a summary of social media coverage here.
