The Greens initiated the inquiry in July 2023 to gather insights from individuals with lived experience and frontline mental health care providers. The committee is led by Dr. Amanda Cohn, Greens’ spokesperson for Health, including Mental Health, and former GP.
Under-resourcing of mental health system
“Months of submissions have shown that the mental health system is so under-resourced that it’s reactive and crisis-driven rather than able to provide assertive continuous care to people with complex and chronic illnesses,” said Dr Cohn.
“The strength of findings and recommendations from this Greens-led inquiry is a testament to both the scale of the change needed in the mental health system as well as the quality of evidence heard by the committee.”
She also said that the evidence was “both unanimous and compelling” that police should not be primary responders to mental health emergencies. Evidence was provided “from consumers and carers, from service providers, mental health professionals and from the police themselves,” she said.
58,000 people in NSW missing out on psychosocial support services
In 2022, NSW Police were deployed to 64,000 mental health-related incidents. Over the past five years, 43 percent of critical incidents involving police, which resulted in death or serious injury, involved individuals in mental health crises. During this period, 52 people experiencing mental health distress died in interactions with NSW Police.
The inquiry closely examined models from other regions, such as South Australia’s MH CORE model. In this approach, Triple Zero calls are handled by a paramedic and a mental health clinician who arrive in an ambulance.
Between April and June 2023, the MH CORE model responded to around 700 calls. In roughly 75 per cent of cases, the team provided care in the community without hospital transport or police involvement. There were no reported instances of harm to MH CORE staff during this period.
Bringing attention to greater need for community funding and health responders instead of sending police, statistics show that there was a 21 per cent increase in community mental health patients in the past decade. Yet funding for those services only increased by 13 per cent in the same period. In fact, community mental health full time equivalent staff has declined from 54.1 to 48.9 per 100,000 population in NSW during the same period.
58,000 people in NSW with severe and complex mental illness are estimated to be missing out on psychosocial support services.
Health-led responses have better outcomes
“We don’t need to reinvent the wheel when we know that a health-led response can be implemented safely for workers, and with much better outcomes for patients and their families,” said Dr Cohn.
“It’s gutless for the government to water down recommendations so that they are able to say they’ve been implemented when really, all they’re committing to is ‘exploring’ them.”
“This is not the time for further investigation, exploration, or consideration. The time for this reform is now. The Greens will be holding the NSW government to account to ensure all of the report’s recommendations are implemented,” continued Dr Cohn.
