An audit of mental health service planning for Indigenous Australians in NSW has found that NSW Health was not forming effective partnerships with Aboriginal communities to deliver the services.
In her performance audit Mental health service planning for Aboriginal people in New South Wales, Auditor-General Margaret Crawford found there was limited evidence NSW Health was using the knowledge and expertise of Aboriginal communities to guide how mental health care was structured and delivered.
Ms Crawford said mental illness, including substance use disorders, was the main contributor to lower life expectancy and increased mortality in the Aboriginal population of NSW.
“It contributes to a higher burden of disease and premature death at rates that are 40 per cent higher than the next highest chronic disease group, cardiovascular disease,” Ms Crawford said.
“Aboriginal people have significantly higher rates of mental illness than non Aboriginal people in NSW,” she said.
“They are more likely to present at emergency departments in crisis or acute phases of mental illness than the rest of the population and are more likely to be admitted to hospital for mental health treatments.”
She said NSW Health had implemented its NSW Aboriginal Health Plan 2013 – 2023.
“The overarching message of the Aboriginal Health Plan is ‘to build respectful, trusting and effective partnerships with Aboriginal communities’ and to implement ‘integrated planning and service delivery’ with sector partners,” Ms Crawford said.
“There is limited evidence that existing partnerships between NSW Health and Aboriginal communities meet its own commitment to use the ‘knowledge and expertise of the Aboriginal community [to] guide the health system at every level, including [for] the identification of key issues, the development of policy solutions, the structuring and delivery of services’ ,” she said.
Ms Crawford said her Audit recommended that NSW Health, in partnership with Aboriginal mental health clinicians and policy experts, research, develop and publish evidence-based models of culturally appropriate Aboriginal mental health care.
She said the Audit also recommended that an Aboriginal mental health policy framework be published including a timeline and plan for full implementation of the framework.
The Auditor-General’s 43-page report can be accessed at this PS News link.